On April 6, the Crescent Ballroom hosted three DJs, Cashmere Cat, Y2K and Broadway Slim. They lived up to all the Internet hype 2015 has to offer.
As is true of all Crescent Ballroom shows, the underage crowd was bumpin'. The older set, however, seemed more inclined to slightly sway, so as not to slosh their drinks. Some in the crowd were able to overcome the trepidation of dancing to slightly ethereal electronic music, and the crowd was so rowdy by the end of the show that everyone agreed that getting down was just the best way to go.
Broadway Slim, the first local act, had flawless transitions but at times seemed one-dimensional. Slim sampled and sampled again, apparently never quite deciding which song worked best.
The act's two artists, Pickster One and Riot Earp, traded the podium to deliver sermons consisting of everything from "There's a Limit To Your Love" by James Blake to "Get Low" by Dillon Francis and DJ Snake. Remixed, of course.
Ari Starace, stage name Y2K and the second act of the night, opened his set with little indication as to the debauchery that was to ensue. The relative simplicity of the presentation was a relief after Broadway Slim. Starace is an artist that commits to building energy before a drop, using piano and extending his sampling much longer than Broadway Slim ever did.
One hit, besides a beloved J-Pop "PonPonPon" remix, was Y2K's track "Nite Wine feat. Mark Johns" tagged "Nightcore" on the artist's Soundcloud. If you've heard Waka Flocka Flame's "Hard In Da Paint" and you like the "Final Fantasy IV" theme, then you'll love Y2K's "there are things you can't forget."
If you have been seeped in the Internet's soft blue glow since you were too young to be looking at a screen for that long, then Y2K's tracks will make you tread and retread your past. But how does Y2K do it all?
"I listen to a lot of new wave, like Gorillaz and Elliot Smith," he said. "Generally, the songs that I make aren’t similar sounding to them, but I’ll just take elements from them, like '80s drums and sometimes I’ll reference tracks."
The crowd really lost it, in my opinion, when My Chemical Romance's 2006 anthem "Welcome to The Black Parade" came on. Everyone cheered, and those who groaned were drowned out and quickly swept up in the audience's energy and nostalgia for 2006.
The audience was as diverse as the tracks sampled, but this show was definitely for a certain type of person.
"I feel like it’ll be a lot of Internet kids, because it’s mostly who would know about Cashmere Cat other than his recent Ariana Grande co-sign," Starace said. "But other than that, he’s kinda low-key."
Cashmere Cat, the stage name of Norwegian-native Magnus Høiberg, was characterized correctly as a more low-key participant. Phone screens lit up the venue when Cat walked out on stage, heralding his entrance. He began his set quietly, with someone screaming "escalate." He committed, like Y2K, to building energy by extending specific phrases longer than might seem necessary.
Cat might be known to a wider audience because of his teaming up with Grande, whose performance at the nearby US Airways Arena brought him to the Valley.
Standouts of the night were "Mirror Maru," which mirrored (get it?) Y2K's use of piano in a lot of his build-ups. Cat used harp sampling instead of piano, however. The visuals were way more ambient than the two openers, and the artist seemed to blend right into the wintery, arboreal landscape background that was refracted behind him.
Like many experimental DJs, there were some alienated sounds — I feel like at one point there was a lawnmower riding around the venue.
The sampling used by all the DJs commanded all parts of the brain's memory banks. From MCR's 2006 track to 2015's Ariana Grande to the future of music, the three came together for an exploration of the best — and most experimental — in entertaining at Crescent Ballroom.
Reach the reporter at pnorthfe@asu.edu or follow @peternorthfelt on Twitter.
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Arts & Entertainment reporter Celina Jimenez contributed reporting to this story.
