Simian Mobile Disco, Hayden Planitarium, NYC. 3/28/08.
Our friend Katherine Hulit managed to get into the sold out Simian Mobile Disco show at the Museum of Natural History’s Hayen Planitarium, so we naturally asked her to tell us how it was:
Going to a show at a museum is not always as awesome as you think its gonna be. Sure in your head it sounds amazing. When I got invited to go see Simian Mobile Disco at the Natural History Museum planetarium my head pretty much exploded. Not only am I a huge fan of S.M.D. but I am also a huge fan of the natural history museums and planetariums and other awesome shit. Basically it couldn’t be more perfect…. IN MY MIND, reality is a whole nother story.
more after the jump
Now, I’m not saying that the show was bad. Because it certainly wasn’t. Simian was amazing and delivered a stellar performance. It was actually very entertaining for a DJ set. Seeing the boys Simian run about the stage turning knobs here and there bodies bopping with the music was much like watching a couple of mad scientists at work. And the aesthetic of the planetarium with its gigantic space rocks and diagrams of the solar system only added to feeling that you were in some crazy space craft driven by slammin’ beats.
The problem with the show essentially was the venue. Yes the planetarium is cool, with lots of fun things to look at and play with. Scattered about arena are scales that will tell you how much you weigh on different planets. This is especially entertaining if your drunk…. that’s assuming you managed to get drunk.
The planetarium doesn’t have a cash bar; they only accept drink tickets, which are dispensed out of drink ticket machines, which only accept credit cards. This is lame. There aren’t enough of these machines around so in order to get at one you end up waiting in line for about 5-10 minutes. By the time you are up at the machine you don’t wanna come back so you are forced to try to calculate how many drinks you expect to consume over the evening. In my personal case I over calculated and was left with a ticket for a 6-dollar beer that I never got to drink. I’m broke… 6 bucks is a lot.
Another problem with the planetarium as a venue is that the lights were simply not dim enough. I could see everyone…. and as much as that provided my friend and me with loads of entertainment people watching, it really put a damper on the party atmosphere.
They also didn’t take advantage of the sweet light show capabilities of the planetarium. Simian Mobile Disco brought their own light show, which was really awesome (but would have been so much more awesome if I was on drugs). As for the planetarium itself, however there was nothing in terms of lights during the set. I feel like the space could have totally been utilized better.
Having a party at a museum is a good idea in theory. Hell, I wanna party with the dinosaurs as much as anyone, but in actuality its not much of a party… cause its in a museum. The museum staff is there to make sure you don’t break shit, the lights too bright so the museum staff can see if you are breaking shit, and they make it a pain in your ass to get drunk because they are afraid you are gonna break shit. It was arguably worth the 20 bucks to get in because Simian is such a fun group, but if invited to another party at the natural history museum I think I’m gonna save my money and go somewhere I can get drunk and break shit.
