I <3 Techno, Europe's largest indoor festival, in Gent Belgium was the destination for my trip mid-November musical adventure. Boasting an incredible lineup, my expectations was high.
Upon arrival at the expo center, the 35.000 people was dealt with very efficient with nearly no queue time anywhere. The place was huge with a gigantic central hall (with and embedded scene in the middle of it) and large rooms in each corner with each their genre.
The amazing lineup (see picture to the right) in the five giant rooms of the Gent Expo Center meant you had to choose between the giant EDM buffet. As the place was huge, you wouldn't like to spend a lot of time walking between the halls, so we opted for at first stop in the dubstep hall, with Netsky, Flux Pavilion, Excision, Zeds Dead, Camo & Krooked and more.
Flux Pavilion
We headed straight for the huge dubstep room to catch Flux Pavilion, one of my long time UK dubstep favorites. I've seen him before at a small venue in Copenhagen with Feed Me and at UMF last year in Miami back to back with fellow Circus Records associate DJ/producer Doctor P. We managed to catch a couple of his great tracks like I Can't Stop and Hold Me Close before we had to head for the Blue Room for some progressive house.
The Swedish nut-jobs Dada Life, as I last saw on UMF 2012 in Miami, is always good for a party complete with singalong rave anthems, blow up bananas and champaign popping. Only one half of the duo was present but he did his best. It's clear, that they are not the best DJ's on earth technically, but they sure know how to party. Don't forget to subscribe to their podcasts on iTunes.
Canadian born and former world 5 x DJ world champion (he won the first at age 15!), owner of Fools Gold Records and one half of Duck Sauce played a great set, not only with the usual prog house suspects (like Dada Life plays), but with regular house and even some disco elements. The contrast to Dada Life was immense. It was clear that we were dealing with a top skilled DJ and not just "button pushing party monkeys. Don't get me wrong, I love Dada Life for their music and their party skills, but they are not brilliant DJ's on a technical level.
Now this is where the party got started! The Major Lazer crew, including Diplo and the Jiollionaire and the decks, plus two dancers and a hype man didn't waste any time and kicked off the party with their own brilliant tracks intermixed with dancehall, moombah, trap, quirky sound bits, samples and vintage records. I saw them in Copenhagen in the fall, so I expected a show complete with CO2 cannons and Zorbing and they didn't disappoint.
Nero is definitely in my personal top 3 and as I haven't seen them live yet, I was really looking forward to finally seeing them in action. Like no others, they produce a very atmospheric and melancholic soundscape you can dream away into. Nero was for me to peak of the festival playing a set of dubstep, electro house and drum 'n bass with their own stuff mixed with other great tracks from Knife Party etc..
I'm really looking forward to their new album during 2013 and hopefully they will magically appear in on the UMF 2013 lineup in March.
My beloved hometown of Copenhagen offered a handful of truly world class EDM artist in just 6 days. Here's a walk-through of the four concerts I attended in that insane first week of May.
Feed Me - Sunday April 29th
We casually walked in to the old steam driven pump station from 1858, now resurrected as a mid-size venue, when the young mau5keteer Feed Me from London played his slamming One Click Headshot from the new smaller stage on the first floor. He had obviously started early, as it was a school day the day after, so we missed the first half hour. We probably were about 200 dubstep lovers that had made it to the old water works building in central Copenhagen that Sunday evening. None the less, people were going nuts to the hard electro and dubsteppy tunes from Feed Me. I even saw people surfing the small crowd. Feed Me was clearly impressed by our late Sunday enthusiasm and twetted : "Shows like that are what DJing is all about. Copenhagen out of nowhere, it's turned into messiness".
He played a lot of his own stuff like Whiskers, One Click Headshot, Trichitillomania from his latest EP as well as his old hit Cloudburn and a lot of other good stuff including quite a few moobahton tracks, that seems to be the new black among EDM DJ's.
I wrote about Feed Me back in February where you can also check out his latest EP. Below you can enjoy his banger One Click Headshot from that EP.
While Feed Me moved to the left of the stage to enjoy a bottle of Jack D with his entourage, Flux Pavilion teared the place apart with his bass heavy UK style dubstep. People went absolutely nuts and security had to get on the stage to keep the crowd of it.
He'd also play a few moombah tracks but kept it pretty dubstep in general playing his own tracks like Hold Me Close, I Can't Stop, the Superbad track with his Circus buddy Doctor P and of course Bass Cannon the made the place crumble in bass related spasms. Flux Pavilion truly rocked the spot and was a notch over Feed Me in crowd control and performance.
Bass Cannon kill it that Sunday, see it in the video and check out some of his other great tracks below.
Flux Pavilion and Feed Me at Pumpehuset gets 4 out of 6 stars.
Porter Robinson - Thursday May 3rd
OK, first show of the crazy first weekend of May, with young gun Porter Robinson at the place called Rust in the multicultural borough of Copenhagen called Nørrebro. Rust was originally created in the 80's as a campaign headquarter and café by some anti nuclear power activists and has later served as a nightclub and urban music venue. The place was pretty packed at the main floor and I would guess there were around 300 guests that night. The 20 year old American, now signed on the Skrillex label OWSLA, started out pretty hard and kept the tempo up playing great electro house-, some moombah- and a few dubstep tracks. The small dancefloor in front of the low and small stage was packed and security had to step in to prevent people from getting hurt in the chaos.
He played a couple of his own tracks, like Unison, as well as the Knife Party remix, both making the crowd very exited. He did a very cool set with high energy and variation and the crowd loved him, and so did I.
Porter Robinson gets 5 out of 6 stars.
Check out the video below from when he played the Unison remix by Knife Party and his latest track Language.
Around 8000 people turned up at historic Forum, the large exhibition and concert hall, that was actually blown up during the German occupation back in 1943, to see the sensation from our blue and yellow neighbors to the east. They sure had a hell of a party on the large Forum indoor floor. Warm up was from local DJ's Kongsted and the duo TooManyLeftHands. Personally I enjoyed the first half the most, where he played a handful og my favorites like Ingrosso and Alesso's Calling, In My Mind by Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl, a really nice mashup of Antidote and Greyhound by SHM and of course the neoclassic Levels mixed with that horrible Gotye song to keep it "fresh" I guess. Never the less, Avicii blew up the spot once again since WW2, with his monster hit Levels that made people scream and go absolutely insane. The VIP section turned me down quite a bit, there wasn't really anything VIP or Deluxe about it and it was filled with steroid pumped and heavily tattooed drug dealer types, that made it a bit hard to enjoy the show.
Avicii (and the sloppy production) gets 3 out of 6 stars.
I've included a video from the show and his latest unreleased collab with Nicky Romero below.
9000 people of all ages and subcultures had shown up, from tweens and business school graduates to parents with children and old fucks like myself. Skrillex has a broad appeal it seems. Warmup was some nice drum n' bass from Netsky but it was clear that everybody just waited to get to see the LA freakshow.
Most of his set was identical with what he played at UMF Miami in March, but there was, for me, one major difference. He played maybe five or six Knife Party tracks! He didn't in Miami, probably because Knife Party played the next day on the same stage, but it made all the difference for me as I both got to enjoy Skrillex own tracks and remixes as well as the greatest tracks from my beloved Knife Party. Of course he also played all his own stuff like Breakn' A Sweat, Devils Den, Ruffneck, First of the Year, Kill Everybody and the new Make It Bun Dem and several of his great remixes like his In for the Kill remix, the Promises remix, the Levels remix and of course the outstanding Cinema remix.
I found it one of the best concerts I've attended in Copenhagen maybe ever and would not hesitate to give it top marks, if it wasn't for the effective but somewhat aggressive security guys plowing through the crowd scouting for sinners to "arrest".
Skrillex gets 5 out of 6 stars.
Below you'll find a video of when he closed hos set playing Cinema in front of a sea of lighters and cell phones and his latest track with Damian Marley "Make It Bun Dem".
As you might already know, I had a very hard time putting together my 2011 dubstep top 5 chart. There were just so many tracks to choose from and sadly not all could fit into the short list.
With this in mind, I would like to share some more of my dubstep favorites, and while the US "brostep" is getting all the attention these days, let's remember who invented the genre and pay a humble tribute to the UK style dubstep.
The general perception of the birth of the genre is that it was conceived in the early 00's by the likes of Skream, Benga and Artwork in a local record store in Croydon outside London, UK. I had the pleasure of seeing pioneers Skream and Benga at Terminal 5, NYC back in October 2011 and Benga playing the world's largest home built sound system Valve (that was mental!) at RAW CPH, the excellent 1-day EDM festival at the grounds of the old Carlsberg brewery back in August 2011, outshining legend Roger Sanchez, who played the same timeslot on the big stage. Even though the rugged Manhattan venue fit the purpose, the young American neon clad audience didn't quite get it. They went nuts, of course, to the bass, the double tempo riddims and the immense energy from the British lads, but there was never a real connection between these dubstep pioneers and the Skrillex raised and brostep fed youngsters in Mario Bros outfits armed with glow sticks. Here's some footage from that night at Terminal 5:
Anyway, I love the UK style dubstep for its detail, its attention to the melody, with roots closer to uptempo drum n' bass, rather than the electro/glitch related US brostep, it always keep me smiling and moving. So here's a handful of my UK favorites for you!
PS: OK, Camo & Krooked is in fact not British, but from Austria, and Netsky is closer to drum n' bass, but you get the general picture.
I <3 Techno, Europe's largest indoor festival, in Gent Belgium was the destination for my trip mid-November musical adventure. Boasting an incredible lineup, my expectations was high.
The amazing lineup (see picture to the right) in the five giant rooms of the Gent Expo Center meant you had to choose between the giant EDM buffet. As the place was huge, you wouldn't like to spend a lot of time walking between the halls, so we opted for at first stop in the dubstep hall, with Netsky, Flux Pavilion, Excision, Zeds Dead, Camo & Krooked and more.
We headed straight for the huge dubstep room to catch Flux Pavilion, one of my long time UK dubstep favorites. I've seen him before at a small venue in Copenhagen with Feed Me and at UMF last year in Miami back to back with fellow Circus Records associate DJ/producer Doctor P. We managed to catch a couple of his great tracks like I Can't Stop and Hold Me Close before we had to head for the Blue Room for some progressive house.
Now this is where the party got started! The Major Lazer crew, including Diplo and the Jiollionaire and the decks, plus two dancers and a hype man didn't waste any time and kicked off the party with their own brilliant tracks intermixed with dancehall, moombah, trap, quirky sound bits, samples and vintage records. I saw them in Copenhagen in the fall, so I expected a show complete with CO2 cannons and Zorbing and they didn't disappoint.
