Keiran Hebden didn’t speak a word as he took to the stage for a packed out Meredith side show at the Prince of Wales Band Room.
Nor did he speak a word throughout the course of his hour and a half set; in fact, he barely made eye contact with the crowd.
Even after returning to the stage and obliging in audience calls for an extended encore, Hebden, aka Four Tet, briefly waved to the crowd and departed, without ever uttering a sentence.
The notorious UK producer was always set to host a not insignificant audience at his side shows, so it was a surprise to see a few tickets remained on the door an hour before Four Tet was set to grace the stage with his presence.
Entering into the venue, it was difficult to determine where any late ticket buyers might have positioned themselves, with the entire room brimming with punters eagerly anticipating the main act.
While the assembled masses shuffled between the smoking area and the bar, the more eager patrons where already quite comfortably losing their shit to some carefully selected and fantastically appropriate vinyl musings from local DJs, Research & Development.
As they wound it down, Hebden could already be seen connecting midi-controllers, laptops, and an assortment of cables and blinking instruments together on the stage, making clear both the complexity and perfectionism of his music. Preparing the stage for Four Tet is not the job for a road crew.
The attention of every clenched jaw and dilated pupil turned immediately to the stage as Hebden assailed the audience with oscillating, wailing synth textures and thunderous house bass lines that quite literally shook the foundations.
Maintaining an appropriate blend of old and new, but leaning towards his more recent material, it was difficult to find a subtle second in the almost two hours that followed.
Hebden seemed to perfectly judge the attitude of the assembled fans, offering up thunderous dance-floor anthems in flawlessly mixed succession, ensuring that the well-behaved but entirely engaged audience remained all but captivated.
Despite the best efforts of a few punters to continue their conversations at the back of the room, the majority assembled affront the Prince stage couldn’t take their gaze from the encapsulating sonic landscapes Four Tet effortlessly rendered throughout the course of his set.
Classic offering ‘Love Cry’ clearly afforded itself the greatest crowd reaction, and saw the room awash with openly eager dancing to it’s four-to-the-floor syncopated rhythms.
A polite wave to the crowd and Hebden skulked back stage, a seemingly rude ending serving only to make it clear that this electronic maestro communicates through his music and not his banter.
Obliging to crowd calls for an encore, Hebden returned to play another 20 minutes of rollicking, dance-floor affirming electro, before another polite wave indicated that the evening had indeed concluded.
A small smile of appreciation was all that existed to hint towards the obvious satisfaction at the hands of the now rapturous room, and the next minute Four Tet was gone, as calmly as he had arrived, but leaving a deep impression across the assembled masses.
Kieran Hebden’s seemingly cold demeanour on stage seemed to affirm the almost obsessive dedication he takes towards his music.
Despite having his eyes firmly focussed on a mixer or laptop screen for the entirety of his set, the UK producer somehow manages to maintain a perfect affinity with the crowd through his music, a characteristic that is indicative of both a fundamentally dedicated musician and a sublime live performer.
