Hybrid at the Amphitheatre – Ybor City

So Hybrid was fantastic! They friggin 0wned the joint! I took over 260 shots; the best 19 are here. ๐Ÿ™‚
The night started out by leaving work in a mad rush, picking up Cam and bootin’ a 1/2 hour north to pick up Jeff. We got to Ybor City a little after 9pm.
Ybor City itself was a sight to behold. The roads were closed off to vehicles, lights were overhead, and there were party people everywhere. Within the first two minutes of arriving, an obviously drunk girl — dressed for clubland — approached Cam and said “Hey baby, I lost my number, can I have yours?” Cam was taken a little off guard and just smiled, haha…
[picture: the central strip of ybor]
We found the Amphitheatre, got our tickets. I asked for normal admission, and got (and paid for) VIP. I thought about saying something, but then decided “screw it. It’s only $5 more. The view from the second floor will be nice”. (And it sure was!) The sign outside the entrance read “Guys: 21 and up. Girls: 18 and up.” Hahah… you’ll never see anything like that in Victoria…


Since it was still early and the club was close to empty, we decided to tour downtown Ybor for a bit.
[picture: centro ybor city]
Jeff managed to find a music store, “F.Y.E.”. Talk about thrilled! I had all but given up on getting Hybrid’s CD: I didn’t get out of work until 7pm, and although there was a music store on the way up to Jeff’s that was still open, they didn’t have the CD. Well, they had it — but let’s just say I’ve blown my CD allowance for next little while. (I will make an exception for the new Fluke album though).
After a quick jaunt around the block to see the sights and a stop at Starbucks (of course!) we headed back towards the club. It was only about 1/2 an hour later, but the street was now much more populated. Beautiful people every direction you look. I tried to get a picture with one of the girls advertising the club, but she wasn’t allowed to take pictures outside. d’Oh!! Man, there’s nothing like this in Sarasota, that’s for sure.
There was no line to get in yet, but it was definitely filling up inside. There was a dress code — no hats on Saturdays. There was no coat-check so I ended up leaving my yellow visor with the ticket girl. The VIP area didn’t open for another hour or so, so we hung out and watched to place fill. Nowhere to sit, so we hung out near the front left of the dance floor by a 3×3′ platform raised about five feet off the ground. Shortly thereafter I noticed there were actually four such platforms, in a square around the 30-foot, circular, rotating dance floor.
[picture: the rotating dance floor]
The first thing I noticed as I walked in was the sound system. “Huge” is the best way to describe it. The wall facing the dance floor housed fourteen 5000-watt subwoofers. It was crazy. (Sound geeks, check out the official specs.)
The second thing I noticed — water was the same price as domestic beer — $5/bottle! Insane!
Around 11pm, go-go dancers appeared on the 3×3 platforms and “started” the dance floor.
[picture: crowd and go-go girl]
Shortly thereafter Jeff, Cam and I headed up to the VIP area. At the top of the long staircase, a sign read “Welcome to Heaven”. And it was nice. We had a pretty incredible view of the place: I estimate we were 20 feet above the dance floor. There was a balcony almost the whole way around, a full bar, and places to sit. Click here [AVI, 320×240, 7.4 mb, 29 seconds] to see a panorama of the club from the second floor. (Notice the broken beat song in the background — breaks are everywhere here! Apologies about the sound quality — my camera couldn’t handle the bass. *grin*).
One thing that was really neat about the club was that every 30 minutes or so, a different group would come out on the stage and perform for us. The first was a dance group of maidens and pirates (!?), doing maideny and piratey things.
[picture: pirates and maidens]
Arrr!
Then a fire dancer:
[picture: fire dancer]
He blew flame from his mouth three times! That hyped the crowd up pretty well. Another group did a choreographed dance routine to an R&B track. It was great. Amphitheatre management really knows how to keep a crowd entertained.
[picture: crowd 1]
[picture: angels on the ceiling]
The club night was broadcast on 93.3 FLZ — the Tampa equivalent to Kube — and the announcer was constantly telling us that “Hybrid is here, what better way to kick off the Labour Day long-weekend?” At first, this got me excited; later it would make me kind of nervous because it was getting on past 1:00am and Hybrid was still nowhere to be seen. Turned out to be my own naivity, though: Hybrid came out at 1:30am and did an hour-and-a-half that blew the roof off!
[picture: hybrid arrives]
Hybrid arrives on stage. That’s Mike at the mixer. His shirt reads “punk royal”.
They opened with their unreleased remix of Radiohead’s “Everything in It’s Right Place”, and then tore into some pounding, low-level, kick-your-booty-onto-the-dancefloor bass-filled breaks, including the haunting “Beauty Never Fades”. That ruled. (Watch Mike mix out of Radiohead! [AVI, 320×240, 29.4 mb, 2 minutes 26 seconds])
Update: Holy Bleepin’ cow, Fatman! Someone recorded the majority of Hybrid’s set from the radio broadcast on Saturday!!! How cool is that? (Download the set, crank up the volume, and enjoy!)
Update #2, Sep 2, 7:27pm: By the way, that set, as well as all the images and video in this entry are now kindly being hosted by hybridized.org. It’s a great resource for any Hybrid fan. Check ’em out!
A funny moment I wanna tell ya about — as the stage curtains rose to reveal Mike and Chris of Hybrid, I struck up a conversation with the guy beside me about how much Hybrid rules. As we both ran along the VIP balcony to get a better look, I showed him the Hybrid CD I’d purchased earlier that night. He turned to me and said: “You know what the problem is, though? This guy (pointing to a guy cheering from the balcony), and that girl, and this guy, and this guy, and that girl, all have no fcuking clue who Hybrid is!” “Well,” I yelled, “this’ll be a good introduction!”
[picture: glowing guy]
The arms, legs and torso of this guy all glowed. He danced for a while, then ended up throwing his limbs into the crowd! Very cool to watch!
[picture: mike on the decks]
Mike on the decks while Chris looks on.
[picture: a chair for the cds]
Hybrid spins both vinyl and CDs.
[picture: disco ball and  yellow angel]
Did I mention the lighting was fantastic?
[picture: hybrid at their record bag]
Mike and Chris select the next choon for the breakbeat massive.
[picture: crowd 2]
And the massive loved every minute.
[picture: rose petals thrown onto the dance floor]
End of the night…. rose petals for everyone!
[picture: my wider angle cd, signed!]
It was a little tricky, but I managed to get my CD signed! Three separate bouncers ask Cam and I to leave while Hybrid was signing it. Funny thing — all the bouncers looked a little stunned to find out Hybrid had a CD. I don’t think anyone else got an autograph that night. ๐Ÿ™‚
[picture: crowd on main ybor street after close]
3 am, the crowd empties out onto the street.
All said and done, it was a brilliant show. There was a free afterparty, but we were far too tired to do anything else. I was a little disappointed by the limelight role the 93.3 announcers were giving Hybrid, but the performance more than made up for it. ๐Ÿ˜€
Got home close to 5am and fell asleep happy and exhausted. ๐Ÿ™‚
[Click here to read Cam’s review of the night.]


Comments

One response to “Hybrid at the Amphitheatre – Ybor City”

  1. Jeff Avatar

    Well I appreciate the ride…that was a bloody good show.