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Concert Sat Jan 04 2014
Flosstradamus @ The Riv 12/30
It's been awhile since we checked in with Flosstradamus. The last time we saw one of their shows was at Lincoln Hall; coincidentally during New Year's Eve of 2010. Some things have changed in the last three years. Lead by producers such as Skrillex, a new generation of electronic music has exploded into the mainstream and Flosstradamus have found themselves performing to ever growing crowds around the world in between recording EPs and new mixes. We remember Flosstradamus playing small yet intense sets at dive bars, so we wanted to see how they would transition from that setting to an almost arena sized theater. It was with this in mind as we headed to The Riv on a snowy Monday night for the first of two sold out performances.
I was greeted by the house DJ who was playing an assortment of things by King Louie and R Kelly as the crowd filtered in. I looked around for a few minutes and was impressed with how large their fanbase has become. They've been big for awhile now, but seeing thousands of people all there to let loose really put things in perspective. This was drastically different from the last time we saw them at Lincoln Hall a few years ago with maybe a few hundred people.
The lights went out and the crowd erupted as they took the stage. Thier setup was early rave culture inspired; dark lights with bright neon glow-in-the-dark visuals. Looking at their setup, I felt like a neurotic roller blading fast talking hacker in a bad 90's cyberpunk movie in the best way possible. They jumped around on stage for a little bit getting the crowd riled up before getting things started.
"I WANNA SEE YOU TWERK, TURN UP," one of them yells as they bust out a cacophonous remix of Missy Elliot's "Work It." They played a lot of early 2000s, Timbaland / Neptunes everything-era rap, but usually at a higher speed and with more menacing bass. The crowd seemed slightly confused as they played a remix of Jadakiss's "Knock Yourself Out" laced with Young Chop inspired pummeling drums, but seemed content with the pulsing beat. They followed this up with a remix of Gold Panda's "You," which the crowd devoured. This emerged as a pattern throughout the night. The crowd seemed slightly confused as they played rap the audience wasn't as familiar with but would follow it up with a electronica track the audience was familiar with.
A slowed down version of the chorus of French Montana's "Pop That" is repeated over and over until it reaches a Steve Reich like hypnotic stage. As the sensation of mania grew increasingly palpable, they mixed in their new single "Mosh Pit." They stopped for a moment to encourage the crowd to actually start a mosh pit. The crowd was told to split into half and wait. As the chorus sang "I turn the club into a mosh pit," the bass dropped and the two sides ran into each other. Some seemed a bit confused what to do and jerked in tune with the music as they aimlessly jumped around and pushed each other. But it was interesting to see that they've gotten so large that they could get several thousand people to do the wall of death.
They wrapped up their set with an extended remix of Krewella's "Alive." It seemed an appropriate way to end things; the established Chicago DJs playing the emerging Chicago EDM group. Throughout the song they'd yell out praises of adoration to the crowd. "I love y'all. You make this possible. We are family." They implored the importance of turning up before fading away into the snowy Chicago night.
