Photo credit: Thesupermaniak, Embrace
When I arrived at The Guvernment on January 11, I was surprised to find that the show had been moved into the Kool Haus. This section of the complex is able to hold more people, so the switch was necessary for the show to function. I was very pleased to see that people weren’t crammed together like sardines, as would have been the case in The Guvernment. That’s what I like to see; tons of room to dance and move. The crowd was exactly what I expected. Surrounding me was mostly glow-stick girls and bros with gelled hair, but there were still a fair number of bass-heads that just came to rinse out to some bone-crushing bass.
When I walked onto the dance floor, everyone was moving to the beats that Brillz was spinning. His set was extremely hip hop influenced as this DJ dropped mostly trap songs. The ravers were loving it. The entire room was one swaying body. The party goers went insane when Brillz dropped RL Grime’s remix of Satisfaction by Benny Benassi. I could literally feel my skin tingling to the massive bass provided by PK Sound. I was excited to hear Right on Time by Skrillex mixed with the theme song of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I have heard that executed in a couple sets before, and it’s always a crowd pleaser. The entire venue sang along to the classic lyrics. Brillz dropped his remix of Clarity by Zedd, which had me going hard and singing along. Nearing the end of his set, Brillz spun his remix of Roots by Kill the Noise, which puts a hip hop spin on the original mix.
I wasn’t impressed by the long pause between DJs. At these types of shows, the headlining DJ should mix into the previous DJ’s set. However, at bigger name events, it seems to be a trend to make the audience wait just like at large rock or pop concerts. We all waited while we listened to various Bob Marley songs, which was at least a pleasant choice.
When Datsik appeared on stage, the long wait became forgivable. He emerged in a massive visual structure called The Vortex. It almost looked like he was inside a giant speaker with trippy visuals being projected on it. The Vortex accompanied by PK Sound’s 50,000 watts of bass created a complete immersion into the music. It was so epic to hear one of my favourite Datsik tracks, Bonafide Hustler (Trap VIP) on such a high-quality sound system. Datsik played a variety of trap and dubstep beats, and I could not even believe the feeling of the bass vibrating through my body. I continuously turned to my friends to share a look of disbelief of the intensity of what we were experiencing. Datsik treated us with a little taste of drum and bass, followed by his Trap VIP remix of Swagga by Datsik & Excision. He then transitioned into dubstep with Zomboy’s remix of Still Gettin’ It by Skrillex ft. Foreign Beggars as well as the extremely popular Fully Blown by Datsik himself. He continued to drop his own tracks such as Firepower and his remix of Kick Out the Epic MotherF*cker by Dada Life. I always love going hard to a classic Skrillex track, so I was having a great time when he spun Reptile. The pace continued to pick up with the Dirtyphonics remix of Deviance by Excision, which had everyone moving non-stop. Datsik ended his set with a couple popular bangers, including Flux Pavilion’s remix of Gold Dust by DJ Fresh.
Datsik was an experience unlike any other thanks to his visual enhancing stage, The Vortex, and with the extra audio boost from PK Sound. I cannot wait until PK Sound returns to the Kool Haus with Excision. I strongly recommend everyone immerse themselves in this overstimulating world of bass.
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Alix Nikulka – EDM TOR
