At the age of 24, Sonny Moore has revolutionised the modern day music scene. Under the alias of Skrillex, he has become a three-time Grammy Award winning artist, and love him or hate him, the musician has one hell of a grasp on how to make an audience bounce.
The dubstep phenomenon recently embarked on his sell-out Grey Daze tour of the UK, after outstanding success on his Mothership tour of Britain last year; and the man who played a huge part in the rise of his genre put on some show at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange last month.
The American began his set in the capital, with a thumping rendition of Breakin’ a Sweat, setting off a rift of bouncing through an audience who were more than ready for the ruffneck bass. Skrillex did not let up from there on, and the highlights of a lengthy set came from well-known hits including Equinox (First of the Year), Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites and the DJ’s remix of Benny Benassi’s Cinema, to which enthusiasts inevitably erupted.
The 24-year-old’s remix of Avicci’s Levels was the icing on the cake, however, with Skrillex allowing the audience to put their vocals to the test before releasing a predictably filthy drop to shake eardrums all round. It’s safe to say, that in the packed venue, any one member of the crowd probably produced more sweat than the entire cast of celebrity fat club would, if they spent the day in a sauna.
There were a couple of songs that didn’t get a play, but any disappointment spawning from the omission of Voltage or Skrillex’s take on In For The Kill were easily appeased by explosive remixes of Pendulum’s Tarantula and Fatman Scoop’s Be Faithful. The Pendulum cover, in particular, went down a treat, remaining largely faithful to the original before imploding into electro madness.
The light show had no groundbreaking features, but the lasers and smoke bursts were well-timed, to add to the concert anarchy. Although Skrillex didn’t engage in much audience interaction, the Los Angeles DJ certainly knew how to work the crowd, and the occasional breather came in the form of calmer songs such as Ellie Goulding feature, Summit, which proved a somewhat euphoric moment in the concert.
Rests in general were few and far between, however. Even support act KOAN Sound commanded scenes of bedlam, and being in the crowd for the support was much like being roped into running a half marathon before willingly going on to sprint the full twenty-six miles half an hour later. The support’s remix of Rusko’s Everyday went down particularly well.
It would be advised, then, that you should not attend a Skrillex gig if you are of the faint hearted. Nor should you attend if you don’t like being pushed and pushing people around whilst leaping up and down to a glorious bassline.
Rather, this is a concert for the fans who live to yell “call 911 now”, before being blown away by a banging sound system, and who bask in delight that the sixty year old steward in front of the stage is leering at them, wondering what went wrong with the modern generation.
It is an occasion for the fans who love Skrillex for the same reason that the dubstep artist is notoriously bad at fishing: he always drops the bass.
