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Review: Deadmeat – Ottawa

March 4th, 2012

[March 1st, 2012 - DATSIK, Steve Aoki, Angger Dimas, and Bass Machines at the Civic Centre in Ottawa]

The full album of this crazy night is available here.  Watch out for our feature with DATSIK coming your way soon!

Homegrown bass head Troy Beetles, aka DATSIK has been on the road for 6 weeks with Dim Mak Records boss Steve Aoki on the Deadmeat Tour.  Powered by Rockstar and SOL Republic, this tour has seen Datsik and Aoki tear the roof off in some 38 cities across North America so far, leaving a trail of aching eardrums and smoothie soaked fans behind them.  With a crew of supporting Dim Mak artists including Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Terravita, Angger Dimas, Mustard Pimp, Alvin Risk, Autoerotique, Andy’s Ill, and Dirtyphonics, the tour has showcased a wide range of electronic music styles from hard hitting filthy dubstep, to heavy electro, to more mainstream house and lots in between.  Live event stalwart Live Nation has obviously taken note of the Canadian market for dance music, with this event showcasing their new division dedicated to EDM, Electronic Nation.

The Deadmeat tour touched down in Ottawa on March 1st for the first of 4 Canadian stops produced alongside local promotion partners like DNA Presents (Ottawa), Produkt (Montreal), and Blueprint Events (Vancouver).  The Ottawa show was deemed an all-ages affair, atypical of the norm but representative of a new effort to engage the younger generation of partygoers and expose them to dance music, a tactic that was also showcased by DNA Presents at the inaugural Pulse event this past December in Ottawa.  This forced a segregation of patrons in the Civic Centre, with 19+ fans required to stay within the boundaries of the “beer garden” and the 16-18 year olds ramming the front of the stage.  This separation was probably for the better anyway, as most people near the front finished the night covered in one of either; breakfast smoothie, champagne, ice water, or birthday cake courtesy of party maniac Steve Aoki and his antics.

The early evening started with the Ottawa native Bass Machines and their dirty electro and dubstep sounds that set the tone for what turned into a sweaty night quite quickly.  The groove continued with the young remixer and producer Angger Dimas, who’s jungle swag brought the energy level way up with a genre defying set that kept fans guessing but always came back to a sick drop in time to keep things interesting.

By the time Kelowna native DATSIK took the stage, fans were practically jumping out of their shoes and chanting his name, ready for the 23 year old superstar to assault their ossicles with his hip-hop inspired grimey bass sound that crosses genres from dubstep to drumstep to moombahton to drum n bass and electro.  Troy certainly delivered, as he surpassed expectations with a 90 minute set jam packed with energy and emotion, featuring a number of his own original tracks sprinkled in between some well known dubstep bangers and a few underground tracks that we were lucky to hear showcased on the big stacks.

Photo by Luc Pigeault

The Dillon Francis remix of Chuckie’s Who is Ready to Jump ensured a solid leg workout for all the bouncing bass fiends in the audience, then DATSIK kept them swaggin’ side to side with his classic release, Excision collab Swagga.  The Zomboy remix of DJ Fresh and Rita Ora collab Hot Right Now got a strong reaction before fans lost it for one of Datsik’s original gems Nuke ‘Em.  We weren’t surprised to hear him drop a bouncy Skrillex track, Reptile which of course was well received by the young crowd before they ate up the flinch remix of peace treaty’s Change.  There was no shortage of bass on this night, as Datsik also threw down the Zomboy remix of Basscannon and perhaps the most anticipated track of the night, his own original mix Firepower which I still don’t know how to dance to, but it felt damn good anyway.  One song I could dance to all night was the dubstep remix of the viral rap sensation Teach me How to Dougie, a perfect blend of bass and two step swag that kept things fresh and fun.

Photo by Luc Pigeault

Datsik certainly put on a theatrical performance, bouncing the entire time and leaving it all on the floor during a set that left fans begging for more.  While he certainly worked us out with non stop jumping and other unclassifiable bass-inspired dance moves, the closing set by Steve Aoki was sure to extract what energy was left in the young crowd before a seriously early end to the night around 1am.  Aoki played exactly what we expected to hear from him, a selection of head bangers that kept a fairly narrow range of mainstream house and electro tracks.  As is often the case, Steve spent a lot more time raging out at the front of the stage than he did behind the decks, and the fans wouldn’t have it any other way.  Some artists draw due to their production, some because of their live mixing skills and song selection, but Steve Aoki is known foremost as a party animal, and he certainly lived up to the reputation on this occasion.

Photo by Kyle Neary

From Dim Mak birthday cake, to breakfast smoothie, champagne, and a bucket of ice water… front row fans were privy to spraying, dumping, pouring, and cake-ing from the Dim Mak boss during a set of mayhem which also included a number of crowd-surfing raft rides and stage dives from the man who dropped essential tracks like Warp, Turbulence, and Afrojack collab No Beef as well as a couple releases off his recent Wonderland CD like Angger Dimas collab Steve Jobs, and Ladi Dadi featuring vocals from Wynter Gordon.  One of the hard-hitting tracks of the night came from Tiesto collab Tornado which was released late last year.  Overall, Ottawa was thoroughly satisfied with the event as fan’s took to twitter to express their gratitude, with messages like “@datsik @steveaoki you need to come back to Ottawa even though you were just here thursday, you guys are too sick!” -@a_miller26 and “i am le hungover. @steveaoki and @datsik killed it last night…and me…” -@larissakushwara.

Photo by Luc Pigeault

From Ottawa, the tour bus traveled to Koolhaus in Toronto on Friday night and then to Metropolis in Montreal last night, before a rare 6 day break that will give the artists a few days of relaxation before the tour resumes.  They pick back up on the west coast next week with a stop in Seattle before somewhat of a homecoming for Datsik, where he will play at the PNE Forum in Vancouver on March 10th, only some 4 hours from his hometown of Kelowna.

Stay tuned to djmag.ca for our interview with Datsik and a full length feature on this young bass boss who we’re incredibly proud to call Canadian.  When the Deadmeat tour wraps up, Datsik is looking forward to festival season including appearances at favourites like Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Coachella in California, and Shambhala in BC.