Within a two-week period, Boston has played host to 3 of the biggest DJ’s in the world, Kaskade, Avicii, and Afrojack. Some would argue that the city is in the midst of kicking off its biggest music transitional period in years, but on the night of June 27th that wasn’t the topic of conversation. Rather, Bostonians and New Englanders alike were focused on gathering at the House of Blues on Lansdowne Street to take in the sights and sounds of Afrojack’s Jacked Tour.
Much like other EDM tours that have come to town, Afrojack brought other DJ’s in tote. However, his friends and label mates that opened his concert brought the skills, music catalogs, and fan followings of acts that would ordinarily take headline billings at the most notable of nightclubs across the world. As a result, this wasn’t your ordinary concert that you arrive at just in time for the headline act and skip the opener.
R3hab kicked things off at...
...approximately 8pm and had a crowd of about 10% capacity. Nevertheless, he didn’t let that faze him. Like a consummate professional, he started the vibe off slow and worked the crowd into his hand. 25 minutes in he had quintupled the size of the crowd and was delivering an increased level of energy. Despite being known for his hard-hitting chain sawing remixes, R3hab avoided hitting the audience with his unique sound song after song. Instrumentally he utilized his remixes, originals, and a peppering of other artists’ tracks to balance his set with progressive builds and double down the energy in the room.
Quintino took over duties from R3hab after approximately an hour and fifteen minutes. The transition between DJ’s was swift and required little effort other than the exchange of headphone plugs and USB sticks. As a result, there was little interruption in the energy R3hab had built up, despite the short break in music between artists. When Quintino took the helm he lashed out to the crowd with his first song choice of Mala, and instantly took the crowd deeper in the music. The electro drop was hard and the beat moved the soul. Quintino was a fun and exciting DJ to listen to as he had hard hitting electro tracks that simmered like the scent of a delicious sauce. He was making electro sauce and it was the dirty, grotesque kind that makes dance parties oh so fun.
The transformative journey EDM is known for was engaged and left the audience more than ready for the headliner of the evening, Afrojack. On this night, Afrojack would wow the Boston EDM audience from intro to close. The energy that built momentum from R3hab to Quintino left the crowd yearning for Afrojack. When Afrojack came out he immediately took advantage of the energy in the room and built on it. He had a custom intro that played a progressive piano chord layering sound clips from Bangduck and mysterious vocals which built on one another to develop a tension in the room. That tension was slowly broken down as the melody of Bangduck played out and Afrojack greeted the crowd “what’s up? what’s up? what’s up? what’s up?…you motherfuckers ready for some Afrojack music?” By the return of the Bass, hands were in the air and everyone was jumping to Afrojack’s bleepy electro tunes. Afrojack’s music lifted the crowd’s energy even higher from the openers.
An early pivotal point in Afrojack’s set was when he dropped Hard Rock Sofa & Swanky Tunes “Here we Go” at the 12 minute mark. The surging synth chord which Afrojack looped a “Pon de Floor” wahhhh over, saw the crowd erupt after the drop “Here we go”. To heighten the crowds’ pleasures confetti filled the room and the strobe lights eclipsed the moment to make you feel like you were caught in a surreal snow globe of rave nirvana.
22 minutes into Afrojack’s set he played Ansel & Dyro’s “Top of the world” vocal to slow everything down and let everyone catch his or her breath. It was a phenomenal resting point because the vocals lyrics are so emotionally charged that they don’t even let you realize you’ve stopped dancing. When the drop came in the track everyone was right back into it. Nick carried the energy from “Top of the World” into a mashup of “Coming home” (dirty south remix) vs “Pacha on Acid”. “Coming home” was accentuated by the room going black and the beach ball sized disco ball being lit up like a jewelry store display case.
Afrojack’s show didn’t run out of tricks there. 35 minute mark Nick asked, “You ready for 2013 new shit?” It was the return to Afrojack’s formidable gritty electro we all loved before his mainstream hits of “Can’t stop” and “Takeover control.” The track ID was the song he premiered at EDC-NY and was a mashup of Knife Party’s “Internet Friends” vs Afrojack “ID”. It was reminiscent of his traditional horns and synths that could make even R3hab’s chainsawing blush.
One flaw we did notice in the Afrojack set was sound levels. Whoever was on the sound board failed to regulate the volume and by the end of the show it was piercingly loud (and we had plugs in). The high notes in tracks were almost unbearably loud.
Despite the aforementioned, the Jacked show was a force to be reckoned with and provided extreme value for the fans. The level of quality played out and the premium performances by the DJ’s transformed the House of Blues Boston into an Electro House oasis.
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