Last night was the opening night of the Unsound Festival and it was awesome. Two of the three events I attended in London were musically OK but failed to induce the feeling and atmosphere I experienced at Unsound Adelaide, but last night well and truly did. The performances were at Manggha, a theatre that is the Japanese centre of art and technology on the river. This is a picture I took during the day yesterday.

First up was Anna Varadny (Poland). I saw her in London but last nights performance and the ambience of the space far eclipsed London. Her music consists of carefully and intricately layered drones and noise that create subtle beating and incredible textures. At the end of her performance as she peeled back those layers I recognized the sensation of coming out of a meditative state! She had taken me on a journey and it was brilliant.

After a short break the next artist was Mika Vaino (Finland). From his artist profile I was really looking forward to hearing him. As the program put it, he "combines force and restrain in his music to form a frightening unity". He was amazing, creating dense rhythms out of industrial scale noise punctuated with unexpected stabs and silence that delighted. The sound system rumbled with deep tones that resonated all through my body. Exactly the sensations I recalled and enjoyed in Adelaide. Definitely the standout of the night for me.

The final act was Tropic of Cancer (USA) and as much as I tried I couldn't get into them. They were much more mellow with massive reverb washed vocals. Not really my thing so I didn't stay to the end. The opening party at a club called Pauza had already started so I decided to go there instead. It was about 10:30 at this stage so I dropped by the apartment on the way for a quick pick me up coffee.

At Pauza there was a succession of artists and DJs playing. The club itself is downstairs and is like a catacomb of brick vaulted ceiling-ed rooms. It was already packed. The first couple of DJs were interesting but I had a feeling I wouldn't be staying long. That was until Philip Sherburne (USA) started. The best techno I have danced to in a long time. Every time I thought my time was up he pulled me in with another hook that got me dancing again. At the end I retired to one of the smaller rooms exhausted and finished up chatting to a guy from Finland in much the same situation as me, on his own. It was great to be able to debrief the evening with some one.

I finally called it a night (morning) at 3:30, grabbing a massive kebab on the walk back to the apartment! Needless to say I'm feeling a little shady today. I'm glad I did so much sightseeing yesterday, it takes the pressure off today.

So what has the title of this post got to do with all this? Well, being at the older end of the age scale of the audience, being solo and not knowing anyone, being an English speaker in a largely foreign speaking crowd ... all these things had made me feel very conspicuous when I arrived at the venue. But somewhere in the evening it dawned on me that all these same attributes also allow me to be anonymous, and that can be a really liberating feeling if I choose to let it be. So I resolved to embrace my anonymity this week.

Day 23 (part 3): From conspicuous to anonymous