Has anyone seen Boards of Canada play live ?

[Skydiver]

I'm supposed to be working, but i got bored and ended up looking at some photo's of BoC.

I saw a couple pictures of them playing a gig and being that I missed them when they played at the Phoenix Festival years ago, think it was in 97 ( I didn't even know who they were ) i wondered if anyone here has ever seen BoC play live.

If so, what were they like ? Any good ?

Skydiver...

[Earthbound]

Never seen em live..
Would trade my wife for a live gig

[john fonda]

nope, never gonna get the chance either

[Retrodreaming]

Well the next live show will be when the rocking horse shit's

[Mexicola]

They apparently played the Phoenix Festival in 1997, just 10 miles from my house at the time. Sadly they were four years too early - I'd never heard of em at the time. Instead I spent the summer getting pissed after finishing Uni. So near, and yet so far...

Would love to know what they played, given as this was pre-MHTRTC.

[red moon]

I saw them at the Warp 10th birthday party gig in London - around 2000? - they were awesome! Everyone was mainly sitting down on the floor cross-legged. Seems to remember some IABPOITC getting played. Was all over to quickly though. Nice Super 8 images as a backdrop, especially when combined with the slightly sinister music.

[zeitgeist]

I saw them at the Warp 10th birthday party gig in London - around 2000? - they were awesome! Everyone was mainly sitting down on the floor cross-legged. Seems to remember some IABPOITC getting played. Was all over to quickly though. Nice Super 8 images as a backdrop, especially when combined with the slightly sinister music.

niiiice. surely you have the bootleg recording though? i would give a lot of things to have been able to experience the last track at that show in person. one of my favorites....just out of curiosity, do you know the name and address of the person who's phone started ringing for minutes during the fucking show? that'd be great to get that and pay them a 'visit'...anyway, i'm pretty jealous.

[Magic Brenda]

Yes.

[idonnoimconfused]

Yes.

Splendid.
Care to expand on what it was like?

[boardsofdublin]

....just out of curiosity, do you know the name and address of the person who's phone started ringing for minutes during the fucking show? that'd be great to get that and pay them a 'visit'...anyway, i'm pretty jealous.

I think the phone ringing goes really REALLY well with that track!!!
I know i'm not the only one either...

[hexagon son]

Yes.

a rather ambiguous post, i must say. of course all the fanboys here (myself included) would probably like to know about your experience. i sure nobody doubts you (i dont, its highly feasible you saw them live), but details make for interesting reading, and to satisfy our vicariousness.

thank you.

[Mexicola]

Yes.

a rather ambiguous post, i must say. of course all the fanboys here (myself included) would probably like to know about your experience. i sure nobody doubts you (i dont, its highly feasible you saw them live), but details make for interesting reading, and to satisfy our vicariousness.

thank you.

He had more to say here.

EDIT - just realised I'm into 4 figures now. Jesus I waste too much time on here!

[hexagon son]

Yes.

a rather ambiguous post, i must say. of course all the fanboys here (myself included) would probably like to know about your experience. i sure nobody doubts you (i dont, its highly feasible you saw them live), but details make for interesting reading, and to satisfy our vicariousness.

thank you.

He had more to say here.

not really, he said he doesn't remember whether he saw them or not.

[Mexicola]

Yes.

a rather ambiguous post, i must say. of course all the fanboys here (myself included) would probably like to know about your experience. i sure nobody doubts you (i dont, its highly feasible you saw them live), but details make for interesting reading, and to satisfy our vicariousness.

thank you.

He had more to say here.

not really, he said he doesn't remember whether he saw them or not.

Picky

[harpoon dodger]

EDIT - just realised I'm into 4 figures now. Jesus I waste too much time on here!

It happens to the best of us....

[Magic Brenda]

I saw them back in '97 with Seefeel. It was a great gig though in all fairness I went for Seefeel cos I wasn't really up on Boards at the time, I'd heard Hi Scores and that was it but I liked it so I thought "result!". If I'd have known then how elusive they would be with the whole live show thing I would have paid more attention TBH. I don't really remember what they played, some stuff off MHTRTC, def Roygbiv and Aquarius but the rest I honestly couldn't say, but it was 12 years ago and I'm old so that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. Everyone was just sat around on floor, they must have been about, dunno... 10 feet away? It was quite intimate, really nice vibe. They had the telly's and stuff, wasn't really much different to the set-up I've seen on pix from other gigs. Got to do a bit of "spot the celeb" too, me and my mate were sat near Plaid, I'm fucking CONVINCED I saw Ed DMX there even though a friend of his says that he says he was never there. Maybe Bjork (still up for debate), Steve and Rob were there and I think Leila was too, but I aren't sure cos I had no idea who she was then or what she looked like. So there you have it, an Alzheimers guide to a BOC gig over a decade ago...

[hexagon son]

perfect. thank you. would have loved to have seen seefeel myself back then as i wasnt very up on BoC in 1997

[BunnyRabbit]

I saw them at the Lighthouse gig.

"Rob rung me ten minutes ago"

It was a weird venue. I think there'd been some sort of problem with the original location so they'd ended up in these warehouses that weren't really set up for gigs. The room was kind of wide but not very deep and there were a lot of people packed ("absolutely fucking rammed!!") in and trying to get in from the wide opening at the back.

BOC were set up as you've probably seen in the pictures. Loads of TVs and then they had a projector set-up throwing their images on the right hand wall of the room IIRC.

They didn't really do much. One seemed to do the music whilst the other just sort of stood there and watched the visuals and I guess cueing them in.

Ate the start of the set an alarm went off and they hard to start again. They looked pretty pissed off. I remember some wag shouting out "groundbreaking". This might explain why the first track is truncated

"This is madness!"

Hard to remember what was what with the music and visuals now but I think during Amo Bishop Roden they had some time-lapse of a sunrise; in 1969 they had the video of kids riding round and round a patio garden on trikes. I don't know which track it was for but they had one with a black screen and a couple of turquoise hexagons in the lower left hand corner. Then a new hexagon would appear at top right with some wildlife video in it. It would then glide down to join the other hexagons before disappearing into them. Then it's repeated. They were eagles in the wildlife bit but I can't remember what else.

"Who's that?"

Overall it was great but nothing extraordinary in terms of what they did musically or on stage. The visuals were the thing that stuck with me.

"the sound around the edge is amazing"

[Totopatter]

I AM SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW.

[Joebot Kill]

I AM SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW.

I am as well, but I'm relieved that at least a couple of people on this board have actually seen them! It's surprising that it took this long to get some in depth descriptions of the shows.