Steve Aoki is an American electro-house DJ of Japanese descent whose forte is knowing exactly how to jump start a party. Aoki performed to a sold-out crowd at Waterloo’s Beta Nightclub on Saturday, Oct. 15 with an additional show added on Oct. 16.
The atmosphere at Beta was live with energy before Aoki even took the stage, with Musa providing the crowd with more than enough music to dance to.
At times during the opening set it became hard to hear the music over the constant “A-O-KI” chant that the vast majority of the crowd chimed in on.
The energy was mounting and by the time Aoki took the stage the crowd was completely engaged.
Aoki appeared to rise out from nowhere, rising slowly out from the bottom of the DJ stand to deafening screams from the audience. Looking out at the frantic crowd, Aoki picked up his microphone and screamed, “You ready for some brand new music?”
Aoki then proceeded to evoke a level of energy from the crowd unmatched by other electro-house DJs.
He was spinning some of his newest music, explained in a tweet he sent just minutes before he came on stage, “I’m gonna drop a brand new remix of #earthquakeypeople tonite by andrew w k. R u ready for some thrash waterloooooo?!”
Waterloo proved themselves to be very ready for “some thrash.” This became apparent through the audience reaction to the preceding songs, “Turbulence” and “Warp.” These songs, in combination with Beta’s stellar light show, sent the audience into a full-on romp.
Aoki is an electro-house DJ, but on Saturday night it became evident he has much more to offer. He was mixing in dubstep beats to appease the wildly dancing audience and playing hardcore screamo samples over house music beats.
The eclectic musical style was working well, although the hardcore screamo at times garnered too much attention from his popular hits that reflect a different style.
Steve Aoki is a performer and his on-stage antics added a great deal to his already high-energy music. In the midst of a dubstep track Aoki was spinning, he threw a blow-up raft into the audience and promptly leaped off the DJ booth into it.
Everyone who was close attempted to get a hand on the raft to help Aoki “float.”
Then came his next antic: drenching the audience with four bottles of champagne that garnered an overwhelmingly positive response.
A Steve Aoki set is more than just a DJ show; it is an interactive experience with the audience accompanied by world-class music.
The performance aspect of Aoki’s set was highly entertaining. He could have focused a little more on DJing, however, for at times it felt as though Aoki had merely opened iTunes and pressed play.
In the end, it didn’t matter, because the audience that left Beta Nightclub that night was pleased and entertained.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.