Photo by Rukes.com

This past weekend was pretty long and fun for me and the City of Chicago. Last Wednesday, the Bloody Beetroots played the Abbey Pub. On Friday, Bart B. More played SpyBar. But Saturday…Saturday was huge. Deadmau5 and Crookers stormed to Congress Theatre for one hell of a show.

The show is part of a new series called Branded, and I really hope the promoters are working on the second installment because I can’t wait to see what other tricks they’ve got up their sleeves.

The full line-up was this: The Whip (UK), Late of the Pier (UK), Crookers (Italy), and Deadmau5 (Canada).

The Venue and Stuff: Holy shit, this is probably one of the coolest venues I’ve been too in my short life. I posted the above picture because I think it gives you a pretty good idea of how amazing it is, but I urge you to add Deadmau5 on Facebook and look at all the pictures he’s posted. The photographer got some amazing pictures from the catwalke/rafters and he got some nice shots of the ceiling. Plus this place has a massive lobby where Chicago DJs were spinning during/in-between sets. Really helped set up the vibe for the night.

The sound system was great. About double the amount of subs you would ever need, but hey…this is a bass-heavy show with a crowd that wants to feel that kick drum.

The lighting was cool. I’m no expert on light shows and stuff of that nature, but I enjoyed it.

The Music: This show, like I said above, was great except for one glaring error in line-up choice.

• The Whip: I listened to this band a little a few days before the show and wasn’t very impressed. However, their live show went off. As the opening act, they had a pretty limited audience (they started around 9:30PM). The audience they had, however, was going all out for their set. There was a pretty interesting mix of electronics on stage and live instrumentation that they seemed to blend together very successfuly. I may not see these guys by themselves, but if they played in my area again with someone mildly interesting, I’d check it out.
• Late of the Pier: Oh boy. Where do I begin? Aside from this band being incredibly wrong for this tour, their lead singer seems to have the temper of a two year old. The night started off for this band like some (if not most) live shows do: a little feedback in the monitor. It happened twice (feedback happens when you shove your mic into the monitor) and the singer threw his mic to the ground. I’m sure it was an SM58, so whatever. You can run those things over and nothing will happen. Feedback continued to happen, so the cockstar singer tosses a couple monitors over the front of the stage. Then the guitars disappear from the mix. Then one of the keyboards stops working. All in all, I don’t think it was a good night for this band…but nothing gives you (or me) the right to toss expensive equipment around like that. I would avoid this band like I’d avoid Limp Bizkit: just don’t see them.
• Crookers: I must confess. I love Deadmau5′ music. He’s great. His mouse helmet thing is fucking awesome. But I bought tickets to this show the SECOND I found out Crookers would be playing. These guys are your stereotypical (in the best way) International superstar DJs. They got on the decks and played hard-hitting dancefloor killers until they had to stop. They blended a lot of their particular brand of electro house/fidget but to my surprise and enjoyment, they killed the crowd with a few brutal dubstep hits. They also played a lot of their personal tracks (their remix of Proxy’s “Raven” among others) and some tracks from their just-missed countrymen (Bloody Beetroots) before finishing up with their remix of Kid Cudi’s “Day N Night.” Absolutely great set and if they’re playing near you, go see them.
• Deadmau5: What can I say? It’s Deadmau5! He started off with some hard-hitting beats (Ghosts N Stuff, Hi Friend) and eventually moved into his more progressive stuff (Faxing Berlin), but it was all good. The crowd moved the entire time and he did put on one hell of a show. The only problem was when it got to be around 2:30AM he seemed to lose a few people. Could be curfews (this show was open to 17+), could be people crashing from drug/alcohol cocktails, could be they got sleepy as the Mau5 drifted into some SERIOUSLY laidback house music. I even stopped paying attention for awhile. Either way, this guy is awesome and his output is continualy good, even if he has had some “meh” tracks come out. Go see him on tour!

Other points: Seriously? No t-shirts or merch of any kind? Are the tour promoters/merch people sure of how much money they didn’t make at this show?

BONUS VIDEOS!

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