Last night at Decibel Festival, I paraded around downtown in comfortable — but not comfortable enough — high heel shoes, to catch Paul Chambers and Orbital at the Paramount and then Tipper and MiMOSA at Showbox at the Market.
Paul Chambers’s set was lively and there was plenty of room for dancing, which put the audience at the right energy level for Orbital. It’s too bad more people weren’t there for Mr. Chambers, as he delivered well-paced EDM tracks, much of which appeared to be created live. Although he didn’t have as much of a visual aspect (compared to Orbital’s set), I thought he pulled off an incredible set.
Orbital’s set was an evolution to beautiful and dreamy, yet still fiercely percussive tunes to harder, dubstep lined tracks. Their visual show was just as entertaining as the sonic experience, and the images on the 3 screens paralleled the tempo and feel of the music as it evolved.
I then landed at Showbox at the Market, where Starkey was just ending his set and out came a “cyber unicorn” puppet, who looped vocal effects and beatboxing to keep the people entertained between sets. Although it was strange, the shtick worked well for the largely “Burner” audience.
Tipper was up next and filled the room with bouncy dance tunes, with beats reminiscent of ‘90s hip-hop. The audience was full of energy and dancing throughout the whole set — including dancing boys with glowsticks/wands/etc.
Finally MiMOSA, a Brooklyn native, finished the night with a 90-minute set that had everyone “waking the fuck up!” He called out excited expletives to his audience every once in a while and seemed to be equally as excited to be dancing to his music as they were. Although MiMOSA didn’t seem to actually be creating much music live, he danced harder than anyone in the room and I loved it. The beats were all hard, using elements from dubstep and current hip-hop. (In my ignorance, I’ve been told this is called “Trap” music — correct me if I’m wrong.) At times, songs seemed to string one to the next, which bored me at times.
Overall, I really enjoyed Day 2 of Decibel Festival and am looking forward to the next couple of days where I can enjoy the later events (some going until 5:00 am) without having to worry about what time I am going to wake up the next day.
Tonight I’ll be catching The Cannabinoids feat. Erykah Badu and The Starship Connection at the Paramount and then walking up the hill to the Baltic Room to catch most of the XLR8R set.
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