Parade of Lasers @ City Hall in Denver (12-21-13) [Review]

A Review By: Justin D'Amico 


Last Saturday was a very bright night for City Hall in Denver. Crowdsurf Concerts put on a huge laser light show for the first ever Parade of Lasers. After a rush of ticket sales at the door the show would eventually sell out. Crowdsurf Concerts does a great job of branding the events with catchy names, like Foam Wonderland, Trapfest, and Apocalectro. Parade of Lasers is sure to be the next branded event from Crowdsurf Concerts.

City Hall is a very unique venue in downtown Denver. The building has two seperate rooms, perfect for events with a second stage. The main room is very tall with 2 tiers of balconies wrapping around the outside of the room. the middle floor balcony transitions between the two concert rooms and the secondary stage is setup on this middle floor, above and beside the main room. In the secondary room you can actually look into the main room, and sliding garage type doors can be opened to combine the two rooms. What really makes the venue one of a kind is the retractable roof in the main room. When the weather is appropriate the ceiling can be opened for ventilation, but this has to be carefully coordinated with noise ordinances. City Hall holds about 2000 people at capacity with all areas opened.

The show would open doors at 7 and local talent would get things going. The second stage featured, EKG, Xenology, Dirty Little Thieves, Tangle, Mr Audity v Deoxy, and Hardphonix v Tonegenerator. The second room was a nice change of pace and genre for the wandering concert goer. The main room opened up with K-Mac and then Decodon on the decks. For the third set Vinnie Maniscalco and Treyy G would battle it out, and pop off a bunch of confetti tubes. The openers did a good job firing up the crowd for the three headliners to feed off of.

First up for the big name producers was Mayhem. He's a killer producer and live DJ with an ear for whats next in music. More and more songs are being made in collaboration with Mayhem. He and Antiserum have a wildly popular song called "Pakistan", and the crowd went crazy when Mayhem dropped it at Parade of Lasers. Mayhem is a really good at crowd control on the microphone too, he always has the people hyped up.

Next in the booth was Bare, another popular producer. Bare was a bit of a switch up from Mayhem, as Bare is more known for a hard dubstep style and Mayhem has made a name for himself as a trap producer. Although both and very well versed in many genres, and for live sets they both showcase a wide variety of styles. Bare is also very good at pumping up the crowd, he likes to go right out by the front row and really get the people to scream.

Borgeous was the closer for Parade of Lasers, and he was accompanied by a completely face melting laser show. Laser Hands, the alias of the former Flux Pavilion Freeway Tour laser operator, was at the controls for an epic laser experience. Just like in the past the best cues were all saved up for a dazzling display during Borgeous' set. Laser hands is a excellent showman, he gradually goes from simple green beams to start off, then into a full color rainbow eyegasm by the end of the show. Borgeous was solid, he played his hits and some other big songs from the EDM scene. All in all the lasers stole the show, and I think that's just fine.

Parade of Lasers was an incredible event with a great crowd and insane laser visuals. Crowdsurf Concerts went all out and in return the place was full. Parade of Lasers was an amazing night and hopefully it will return next year. Check out this recap video of the night from the awesome videographers at Crowdsurf Concerts.