Event Review: Kaskade’s Freaks of Nature Tour Takes Philly 6/28/12

Originally, I had a ticket to see Kaskade on his Freaks of Nature Tour when it stopped in NYC. I ended up having to work that night and was unable to attend the show. To my surprise, I came across unsettling opinions about how the show went, mostly comments regarding the typical and predictable performance Kaskade provides at his shows; same melodies, same vocals, same mashups. A few days later, Kaskade went on a little bit of a twitter rant, explaining that all together he had “no beef” but just wanted to make a distinction between what he did, what others do and where the Freaks of Nature Tour falls within that.

Kaskade spoke out on Twitter about the Freaks of Nature tour “criticism” through twitter. Sometimes 140 characters just doesn’t cut it.

After reading his outburst, I bought my ticket to his FON tour in Philly to check it out for myself and write a review of what I thought. To begin, the venue, Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing was overall average in terms of space and set up (except they didn’t give wristbands for people 21+ so every couple of minutes an event staff would come up to you and check your ID which got pretty annoying). One thing I did like was there were sets of bleachers at certain parts of the venue where anyone could stand, so I made sure I got up there to see the stage better. Kaskade took the stage around 9:45 and when he did, the energy at the pier was so ridiculous I almost fell off the bleachers from the shaking of the synchrony of the crowd jumping from excitement. Only a few minutes deep into his set did Kaskade throw us all into a bass rush playing Gregori Klosman’s remix of “Room for Happiness.” Continuing with his deep house demeanor, Kaskade dropped his mashup of “Fire in your New Shoes,” vs. Swedish House Mafia’s “Antidote,” riling the crowd up even more. Kaskade then played his classic single, “Angel on my Shoulder,” attempting to bring the pier back to sanity, only to once again enrage us with unexplainable emotion, dropping forceful Quasar vs. the soothing vocal of “4 AM.” This seemed like Kaskade’s theme for the entire night; bringing us up with his heavy vocal melodies, tearing us down with hard deep house only to bring us up again, and I have to admit his song placement strategy to go through with this theme was extremely impressive. It being festival season and all, no show would be complete without Quintino & Sandro Silva’s “Epic,” which Kaskade somehow managed to mash up with his single “Call Out,” almost leaving me on the floor once again, this time because the girl next to me shoved me out of the way to get to the crowd to rage.

The night almost coming to an end, Kaskade ended his mashup binge with another bomb, blending his song “Turn it Down,” vs. Nicky Romero’s “Toulouse,” then finally closed his set with soothing hit “Dynasty.” Although a settling song, the crowd was not ready for the show to conclude, demanding one more song! Leaving us with a little treat, Kaskade came back on and played Lessons in Love intro edit, finally leaving the crowd satisfied (as much as one can at the end of a show, considering we all leave depressed that it is over). Kaskade destroyed the crowd in Philly, all arriving as somewhat normal individuals (for the most part) and leaving as Freaks of Nature. With all the recent commotion and unsettling feelings of how EDM is going mainstream, we should appreciate and value Kaskade’s devotion of staying true to his roots with his deep house, heavy vocal melodies, even if his sets may sound similar at times. Isn’t that the main reason we spend all our savings to go see artists perform anyway?

Article by: Monnica Farag