Avicii Visuals Wow, Performance Pleases Some

The Le7els tour was dubbed the Biggest Dance Party of the summer by nightculture.com and was already historical in nature before the Levels tour even began.  Led by Tim Bergling, stage name Avicii, and accompanied by opening acts Pleasurekraft (Boston show), Morgan Page (Boston show), and others; the tour set out to provide enough capacity for Avicii’s growing fan base.  Doing so, Avicii’s management created the first electronic dance act to host an “all arena tour”.  In Boston, Avicii would also be the first Electronic Dance Act to play the TD Boston Garden, in recent memory.  This would be the status check on EDM in a mass market and the status of EDM specifically in Boston.  Until now, Avicii’s works have only been displayed in nightclubs, festivals, mainstream exposure in Super bowl commercials and radio play via Flo-Rida’s remixed version of levels.  Would Time Bergling, the most recent edm crossover artist embraced by the mainstream be able to lead such a massive tour to success?

Well Tim's tour got out of the gate with ...


Click the JUMP to see Videos and Pictues from the Show




...a tough start. The Levels tour was canceled and delayed by a month before it got underway to help ticket sales and give extra time to build the stage production.  However, that wasn't going to stop this historic event from Avicii TD Boston Garden show.

The night of Friday June 15^th, brought a mass influx of 16-18 year old, neon clad teens to Causeway Street.  Along with the younger crowd came the care free spirits seeking good times.  In front of the garden, they stuck tight to the groupings they arrived with.  The rare North Station seeker passerby that asked, “What is going on here?”

What was happening was the burgeoning dance community was finally being seen in the city and not tucked away in a nightclub or high school gym.  While the most die-hard EDM fans weren’t necessarily in attendance for Avicii’s “mainstream” show, the new generation of dance music fans were.  Looking to get lost in the music and unbeknownst to most, discover PLUR, the new comers embraced outfits traditionally found at big EDM festivals, such as EDC.

EDMBoston.com was on hand outside the Boston Garden an hour before the show to take in all the sites.  We handed out free EDMBoston.com stickers and took fan photos for the site.  Having been in nightclubs and festivals over the past year, we’ve always received a warm reception from EDM fans.  Nevertheless the Garden offered EDMBoston a less welcoming scene.  It was reminiscent of a high school cafeteria.  The small clicks of attendees traveling together stayed within themselves and were hesitant at best to chat with fellow concertgoers.  Something was eerily off in the atmosphere.   It was our first experience with the younger underage scene and it wasn’t packed with the excitement we thought we’d see.  The majority of the crowd at Avicii could have cared less about coming together with everyone at the show, yet alone know what PLUR was.  These mainstream fans were at the Garden for two things and that was to hear Levels and indulge in elicits.  Even so, we did meet some great people at the Avicii show and we want to give a big shout out to them!  You guys made our night, as do all the friendly fans that follow our blog.

Nevertheless not all was flawed with the Avicii show!  The outstanding part of the night came when Avicii’s new stage was revealed.  Although the curtain drop reveal didn’t go as smooth as it should have, it gave slight pause to the music only to hear the crowd chant, ”Avicii…Avicii… Avicii.”.  We had read about the new stage and seen pictures of it online.  However, none of them did this stage any justice.

The face, a gargantuan 20-foot tall white structure, which Tim Bergling stood atop, looked like an inanimate object from a 1980s Sci-Fi flick or an oversized version of Lord Farquaad’s face mirror.  Within seconds, the face's lips were lit up and began moving.  They sung the famous vocals from Etta James "Oooohhhh Sometimmmeeee...."


Avicii's performance was underway and it started with the track that made him famous in not only the EDM world but also in the mainstream.  The catchy melody of Levels had the entire crowd moving with hands in the air and screaming.  At this point the face was displaying full-blown 3d visuals that were awe inspiring to a first time viewer.  They literally helped you forget that you were listening to levels for the 500th time and wanted to pull your hair out.  The visuals were not only captivating, but also functional.  Whether it was awash in lasers, checkerboard patterns, or images of earth they all looked stunning and kept the show interesting.  Not to mentioned they were synched extremely well to the music.




Avicii was not only able to use the visuals on the face to keep the crowd engaged, but he also used the face to lift him up and drop him into the back half of the arena floor.  You read that correctly, Approximately an hour and half into his set, The top of the face lifted up and traveled 75 feet into the dance floor and stood 5 feet from the tallest person in the crowd.  It all happened during the remix of Red Hot chili peppers Otherside by Third Party.  It injected a surge of energy into the back of the arena and proved to be one of Avicii’s shows most successful elements.

At EDMBiz people questioned Avicii’s ability to move a nightclub into an arena.  Overall we’d say he was able to do such with ease due to his effective stage setup.  He got everyone involved in the party, especially with the maneuver of being able to reach the people in the back of the arena.

Throughout the night Avicii’s stuck to Big Room House and didn’t deviate.  In our opinion, this often made the show less desirable because there was no flow to the set.   It gave his show the feeling of a rock concert more then a traditional EDM set. 

Nevertheless, the crowd ate it up.  Avicii knew his crowd and delivered what they wanted.  For that you can’t fault the dj for playing what the audience wanted to hear.  “In my mind”, “Bromance”, “Hang with Me”, “Greyhound, “Superlove”, and Antidote were the sounds that filled the arena.   Avicii got into the theme of the garden and closed out his set with Bruin's theme song Zombie Nation.

There were no surprises during the set and often times it was almost predictable what he would play. Our only gripe was we could have gone without Tim Bergling’s incessant fake knob turns.  When Tim’s right arm wasn’t half bent in the air, then it was affixed to the mixer.  While it looked entertaining to a new comer or someone that didn’t care, it was obvious that Avicii was only fading from track to track. 

Overall, was the show a success with the fans that attended? Yes.  Was it a success for EDM? No.  The tracks used as crowd lifters in other DJ’s sets were reduced to watered-down radio-type music that everyone is tired of.  As one of Boston’s resident DJ’s, DJ Breeazy tweeted “its pop music.”

We leave you with a quote for famed DJ Armin Van Buuren:

“This is the way that I see the art of DJing: the art of DJing is not playing all of those big records in a row. The art of DJing is playing a set, which builds towards something. Yes, of course with a few big records, but it’s more the story that’s important, the journey, than the actual hits that you play.”

~Armin Van Buuren