Zedd delivers A+ performance

Performance

Openers

Setlist

Crowd

Worth the $$

The mark of a truly great electro-house performance is the ability for a DJ to give the crowd something they can’t experience while listening to the music at home, and Zedd, a Russian-born German electronic dance music producer, managed to deliver this flawlessly at London Music Hall Monday night.

Interspersed within his sets were samples from artists that varied from Knife Party to Korean rapper PSY. The true crux of Zedd’s mixing showed when he managed to seamlessly blend M83’s “Midnight City” into a heavy electronic set.

While the samples were nice, Zedd also had the foresight to sprinkle all of his classic jams throughout the set, and add a little something extra to them to create an environment that fully appeased the crowd.

Zedd controlled the crowd by timing his drops perfectly, and practically making the crowd beg for his most popular song “Spectrum.” Although he didn’t play this song until the finale of the show, he led up to it with a superb mix of tracks by other artists from both the past and present, and let the song play in its entirety to end things off.

The openers provided ample entertainment while the audience waited for Zedd, as Kill Paris cranked out a strong set that was a pleasant surprise, and Alex Metric provided his usual, floor-thumping self to fully gear up the crowd.

When a show’s openers use intricate mixing, it usually means you can expect high quality performances the entire night.

The crowd may have even been too hyped up, as it was primarily composed of rude ravers who felt entitled enough to push and elbow their way to the front of the crowd with the vigor of a Spartan warrior. While a few annoying characters are tolerable, the sheer number of them really took away from the five-star potential of the show.

While a few people attempted to jump on stage and get intimate with Zedd, they were quickly and easily dispatched by the security staff, who also kept a good lookout for audience members who may have been too drunk.

The stage was constantly backlit by an impressive array of animations that highlighted each of the artists who were performing. Along with this, lights shot out into the audience, just out of the reach of outstretched hands, creating a multicoloured, strobe experience not easily replicated.

The crowd was so into the show that any worries of the London Music Hall’s bending floor were quickly erased by the energy in the room, and the fact that a broken floor would be a much bigger problem for the girls who were perched on the shoulders of someone else.

Overall, Zedd was able to create an environment where he followed strong openers, and encapsulated the audience with an extended set that lasted well into the early morning—and had the crowd chanting for more.

If you happen to like electronic music, and Zedd is playing somewhere near you, he is definitely a ticket you do not want to pass up. As an overall experience, Zedd’s Monday night performance was an A to Zedd.