Saturday, October 12, 2013

Bassnectar w/KOAN Sound & Andreilien @ US Cellular Coliseum - Bloomington, IL - "Immersive Music Tour" [10/04/13] (Review)

Bassnectar's Family Photo

A Review By: Gerv Pandey
As soon as I heard that Bassnectar was performing at The Us Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington, Illinois, I knew that I had to see him. Having wanted to see Bassnectar for three years now, I saw this as my perfect chance, given that the venue was only a 45 minute bus ride from my school in Champaign. I had the privilege of attending the show hosted by Jay Goldberg Events and Entertainment and was lucky enough to bring a good camera into the show. The morning of the show, I, having not slept very much in anticipation of my first Bassnectar experience, packed a backpack and let my friends at Illinois State University know that I was on my way. Fast forward a few hours and there we were, standing at the entrance of the venue. The will-call line was an exciting experience in itself; it wasn’t that long, and everyone in it seemed extremely overjoyed for the show, first-timers and long-time fans both. After we all got our tickets security was a breeze. We had to remove the caps from our water bottles for safety reasons though. As soon as I entered the actual stadium, I knew I was in for an overwhelming experience. This was my first time at the Coliseum and it was gigantic. I remember reading that the venue had a capacity of 8,000; and the show was sold out, so the stadium was PACKED!
Right side curtain right before Bassnectar started playing
I have been to many shows produced by Jay Goldberg Events and Entertainment so I knew that this experience would be at the very least mind blowing.
Andreilien kicked off the show. I had heard a bit of his music before but not too much of it. Needless to say, I am a huge fan of glitch-hop so his set was really fun. It was perfect for warming up the crowd. He dropped a great mix of his old bass-heavy tunes as Heyoka and new synth-focused ones as Andreilien.  He kept the tempo at a hip-hop pace: 90-100 bpm, making it perfect to vibe slowly in preparation for a very intense show later on in the night.
When Andreilien finished his set with great applaud at 8:00, KoAN Sound took the stage.
They are a dub-heavy duo hailing from Bristol, England. I had never heard of KoAN Sound before the show but I was very amazed at the production skills they possessed. Many dubstep artists today like to amp up certain instruments, such as the bass-line, to create a ‘louder’ sound. In technical terms, this would entail adding a limiter to a track and turning up the gain. The problem with this is that it makes other instruments inferior and makes the bass sound thinner. KoAn Sound does a very good job of EQing their tracks, developing a sound that is very refined and mastered. Their set mostly consisted of hip-hop based dubstep that definitely brought out a lot of energy from the crowd towards the back but still maintained the slower vibe instilled by Andreilien.

Light Show from my vantage point
Their set ended around 8:50 and at this point everyone was so amped up for Bassnectar. No one was standing still or sitting down. At 9:00, the whole stadium went dark and everyone knew that the show was about to begin. The song Welcome To The Jungle started playing and the crowd went wild. Bassnectar started slowly tweaking the song and finally the bass kicked in. I was in the second row of the stands for most of the show, which is a little further than the floor from the stage, but I could feel the bass resonating throughout my whole body. Bassnectar very effectively mixed all sorts of electronic music together. Most of the show was dub-heavy, but there was a notable amount of house, hip-hop, acid jazz, and even experimental/downtempo dub. His mixing ability completely stunned me. The way he switched from one song to the next while adding in cut up samples throughout created a new facet for electronic music to be performed live. One aspect of his set that completely blew my mind though was his LED display. Bassnectar calls it the Ultimate Nerd Server. Basically he assigned video samples to every sound in his set and he effectively could sync the video clips while he added effects on his tunes, live! I have never seen video technology like this at a show. With added confetti cannons, balloons dropping at Bassnectar’s remix of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, and a high quality laser-light show I could say with confidence that this was one of the best shows that I have ever been to.
The pinnacle of the show. Balloons dropping while Bassnectar played his remix of Nina Simone's Feeling Good
I highly recommend that you try to see him at one of his stops on his Immersive Music Tour. I also recommend that you try to go to other shows that are produced and promoted by Jay Goldberg Events and Entertainment if you are in the Midwest region. If you are a fan of music, any music, this tour is not worth missing at all. Everyone's favorite genres of music are represented in some ways or another.We got to check out the tour a week before this in Lincoln, NE. Check out our EXCLUSIVE review of that show: HERE.


Check out our EXCLUSIVE video from the tour in Lincoln, NE. Confetti Cannons and everything.. :)

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