Review By: jdrightright
Photography By:
Stetson Colt Mathias
The Neckbreaker Tour made a stop at Cervantes Other Side this past Saturday night. Once again
Rebudz and
Reload Productions came together to bring an awesome display of electronic music. The line-up included local talent Detrace, Coult45, and DJ Fury, as well as Tempest, and Habstrakt, with Dirty Phonics headlining. The moon was full, the Other Side was nearly sold out, and an energetic squad came out to rage.
The room at
Cervantes Other Side is super intimate, there is no barricade in the front row so you are right up to the stage. You can basically reach out and touch the artists if you wanted to it's really cool. Rebudz brought out Surreal Laser to add some extra visuals. They had
two lasers installed onto pillars on each side of the DJ booth and when
the bass dropped the lasers zapped. Out back is a large smoking area with a wooden second stage structure.
Early in the night out on the wooden stage, separate from the
Neckbreaker Tour show inside, was a group of Christian rappers
preach-styling. No one knows why.
Starting off the night was
Detrace an up and coming artist representing Denver. He has direct ties to Rebudz and is a resident at Beta Nightclub. Detrace is a smart live DJ and also a very skilled producer, he got things started with some chill and melodic music and throughout his set he ramped up the hype meter slowly. I like how he puts his live sets together, he is very inventive and mixes clever transitions that blend two songs to create a whole new build up. You have to check him out if you haven't already, dude is ahead of the curve.
DJ Fury took the stage next with a special guest
MC Dozha and he immediately got the collective heart-rate thumping with drum and bass music. His set also had plenty of dubstep and drumstep drops too, and MC Dozha added a bit of flavor with some freestyles on the mic. Fury always brings a massive arsenal of music, he has been around the electronic music scene for a long time. He is responsible for a lot of the amazing artists that come to Denver. Fury is a pivotal part in the Reload Productions machine, and he never disappoints. This set was extra dirty and dubby, which worked perfect to get the crowd kickin.
Next up was an impressive producer formerly from Colorado but now out in California, Danny Kim aka
Tempest. I was able to chat a bit with Tempest and he's a really nice guy, always willing to talk to fans. I thought he might have gotten his DJ name from the old school Nintendo game, but he told me he had never played it. He makes deep dubstep and he put together a bangin live mix. The room started to really fill up during Tempest's set, and he got them all bouncing. Tempest did a lot of sneaky drops, where he would play the build of one song and then drop a much harder track. One drop that was exemplary united Zomboy and Flosstradamus with both drops playing at the same time. Tempest slayed the crowd and they kept coming back for more.
Coult45 took the controls and layed down a raunchy set with a trapstep, dubstep, and drum and bass. On select Gravity Fridays Coult45 is another DJ you can find at Beta Nightclub. He got his flow started with music from the new Cookie Monsta EP, and the song "
Death Wobl." Coult45 used a lot of the new music I love to create this live set, so I stayed right up front. Some of the loudest bass of the whole night came out of Coult45's mix. Lots of finger guns were shot during this set and I was one of the shooters. Coult45 closed out his set with a drum and bass segment which primed the people for Habstrakt.
A special guest headliner
Habstrakt from the Never Say Die Records crew joined the Neckbreaker Tour to show Denver how a true house DJ does it. Habstrakt has been pumping out the house beats for years and he is one of the pioneers of the rather popular bass house genre blowing up right now. Habstrakt accidentally cut the music right at the beginning of his set and he said, "Alright, I just made a big mistake, great way to start the night. I've got the biggest headache since 1972!" He is a comical guy on the microphone, and full of dance moves on stage. Habstrakt likes to jump-shift around on stage to the beat, and he makes it look like so much fun to be a DJ. During his set he made a point to shout out some of the producers that created the music he was mixing, producers like Eptic, DJ Snake, and Trampa all got props. Habstrakt spun in between house, dubstep, and bass house mostly but he covered almost everything. One drop in particular cracked me up, he built up to Zomboy's "
Like A Bitch" and then right at the drop switched it up to Enya "
Only Time." He then yelled out, "Enya!" It was hilarious to see the reaction of the people. To close his set Habstrakt changed gears and spun into some Moombahcore. The whole set was magnetic you had to get up bop around to the beats.
Dirty Phonics was the featured act on the Neckbreaker Tour and they showed us why they are so elite. The band started out as four guys all adding a little something different to their live sets. Just last year Thomas left the band so now it's down to three
Charlie,
Pitchin, and
Pho. For this night it was two of the three Charlie and Pitchin, and they came just as hard as when it was four guys. Charlie was hopping all over the stage and built up a sweat, he showered himself and most of the front row with bottled water throughout the mix. Pitchin mostly stayed in the booth and kept the beats going hard. This was a bit of a different set than I would have expected involving a lot of genres other than drum and bass. Charlie and Pitchin blended into some dubstep, drumstep, bass house, and even trap. They played a new song of theirs still unreleased which crushed, it was a bass house and dub hybrid. The headbangers were going off for Dirty Phonics especially the girls in the front row. There wasn't much time for an encore but the guys made the people headbang with a metal-step track to close. After their set Charlie and Pitchin stayed around and autographed items for the fans, it's such a cool gesture for artists to come out after performing to meet the people who support them.
The Neckbreaker Tour came through with a rowdy night of hard bass.
Cervantes Other Side hasn't been that vivacious in a long time. Denver very well may be the Bass Capital when we show out like that. Check out more of the ill photography from
Stetsen Colt Mathias, and help me thank him for his visual documentation the night. It takes a special kind of promoter to put these events together, much
love goes out to
Rebudz and
Reload Productions for all they do. More awaits Denver bass fam, stay sharp for show announcements, there are big things ahead.
