By Shikhar
Even though Pretty
Lights is playing at the Garden in Boston for Halloween, it was not enough to
keep me from seeing his complete set at Zoo (it’s just a good rule of thumb
most people should follow: Nighttime + festival closing + Pretty lights = DO NOT MISS, well maybe for Daft Punk).
The main stage was nowhere close to empty yet not so packed that you
could not move a muscle. The perfect formula for what I like best. I decided to
observe the opening of the set from the grass right outside of main stage and soaked in his awesome setup in its entirety. Pretty Lights slowed the
entire momentum down to that of hip hop and hit the crowd hard with his vocal
samplers combined with rough hard hitting tones.
Let me take this space to just
mention my growing admiration for Pretty Lights fans, people who love pretty
lights are fanatically in love with him and that passion just oozes out on the
floor when Pretty Lights, aka Derek Vincent Smith, takes the stage.
When he dropped Total
Fascination the crowd’s reaction was priceless, it literally looked as if a
10,000 volt current ran through the veins of every single person in attendance.
No one bothered to remember how tired they were at 10pm after raging since 1pm, everyone just
jumped, twisted, and gyrated their body to the beats and sang along. The only
thing that was equally good as the music Derek was spitting out, was the crazy
light show going on. Instead of the regular strobes and led’s shooting at the
crowd, Pretty Lights was wowing audiences with his signature shapes and views
of cities, skyscrapers and lasers, which formed a cloud over the crowd.
He kept going for the majority of the hour non-stop with other hits that
included ‘still night’ and ‘finally moving’ with occasional shout outs to New
York and Electric Zoo. However, the best part of the night was at the very end
when he just stopped the music and had a heart to heart with the fans. Derek asked
every one if he should hit the Zoo with another song and boy did he HIT them
with a song. Music cuts back in with the intro to ‘I know the truth’ and the
entire crowd, with yours truly included, literally lost their mind. Everyone sang
along to the vocals and that howl before the drop was one of the loudest I’ve
heard live in person at a show.
The show was everything I had imagined a
perfect Pretty Lights would be like, now I am pumped to see him again in
Boston!
Read our full Electric Zoo Day 1 Review here
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