CLICK HERE FOR MORE AIR + STYLE 2018 COVERAGE!
LOS ANGELES, CA- Serving as an appetizer for the Saturday night headlining performance by Zedd at Air + Style, the Norwegian DJ/record producer/turntablist Cashmere Cat gave the music festival crowd an hours worth of his musical stylings.
It was the first time I had ever seen or heard Cashmere Cat perform live, and while I looked forward to hearing his trademark mixing of modern pop hits and left-field drops, I think my attention may have waned a bit early on as his set opened rather lethargically, in my humble opinion. With a modulated string ensemble and a slow rolling bass theme, I just felt that the build up he was trying to achieve took too long. By the time Mø’s vocals kicked in on his hit “9 (After Coachella)”, he was already 10 minutes into his performance.
I liked how he chopped up “Trust Nobody” and his Ariana Grande collaboration “Adore”, but other moments like his inclusion of a remix of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”, Lil Uzi Vert’s “For Real” and Panic At The Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” sounded a bit uninspired, more crowd satisfying filler if anything.
For EDM acts to really thrive live, I think that amazing stage production is essential. During Cahsmere Cat’s set, the bright lights and cool graphics that were present for other evening DJ performances was noticeably absent. While the occasional strobe flickered to briefly illuminate the stage, and a clean white glare from the huge LED screen behind him lit up, Cashmere Cat’s performance was basically in the dark. Whether it was or wasn’t done by design, I thought that the lack of visual effects only hindered the performance. Without the visual sensory barrage, the performance felt basically the same as listening to his mixes on Spotify in front of a computer.
But the sonics he unleashed, as evidenced by the moving bodies in the crowd, clearly did it’s job, well lubricating spectators for the sensory overload that was to follow.
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CLICK HERE FOR MORE AIR + STYLE 2018 COVERAGE!
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