It was 11 p.m. at the Monarch Theatre Saturday night in downtown Phoenix and people were already being turned away, as the Montreal-based DJ Snails geared up to destroy an incredibly cramped and soldout venue with his breed of “vomit-step” electronic dance music.
The energy was already cranked to eleven as Trollphace opened up the show, bringing with him a beard that would make George R. R. Martin proud and an array of bass drops and that literally shook the floors of the Monarch.
Seriously, the headliner wasn’t even playing yet and fans were losing their minds. Mosh pits were starting, walls were on the verge of collapsing and two dudes near the front of the stage went from threatening to kill each other to hugging it out within a matter of a seconds. This was just the beginning of the night.
Trollphace was heavy, but he was just a warm-up to the main event. When Snails finally hit the boards, the crowd had turned ballistic. This was exactly what the DJ wanted.
He knew how to breath life into a crowd and easily shifted from bruising dubstep synths into pounding hip-hop and even some ‘90s bangers just to appease anyone who wasn’t already familiar with what was going on around them.
It was clear to see why this DJ is a signee of OWSLA, the record label of electronic music icon Skrillex. The breed of dubstep that Snails is bringing to the table has enough magic to make even the king of bass shake in his boots.
Original Snails tracks like “Funk With Me” featuring the saxophone-friendly duo Big Gigantic brought a bouncy vibe to the club, while the Smashing Pumpkins-sampling “VMPR” laid waste to everything in its way.
Other familiar tracks were dropped throughout the night including “Prison Riot” by Flosstradamus and “Jungle Bae” from Jack Ü’s newest album, surely a shoutout to his record label, but the song drops hard; Snails switched it up and turned the track into a rowdy, faster version that made everyone in the audience collectively lose their shit.
The crowd lit up with nostalgic glee when Snails dropped a cut of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by the original boy band: The Backstreet Boys. It didn’t take long for the song to turn into a dubstep jam, with synths mimicking the original song, making this the world’s heaviest Backstreet Boys cover.
By the end of the night, even the security guards were bobbing their heads along to the music, as fans sweated it out until the very end.
And when Snails dropped his always lights-out track “King Is Back,” it was clear to see he was living up to its name.
Reach the arts editor at jhgold2@gmail.com or @misterjacobgold on Twitter.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
