Review: Dillon Francis at Enclave Chicago Saturday 7/21/12

When I think clubs, I think house. The euphoric choruses and pulsating 128 BPM baselines provide the background music to most of my weekend nights. House works. But what about dubstep? Having failed to see a strictly dubstep club show in the past, I didn’t know if this genre would work as well alongside graphic tees and bottle service as it does in the festival tents. But that was before I saw Dillon Francis at Enclave last Saturday night. I discovered that his mixture of moombahton and dubstep can provide the same incredible experience I’ve grown accustomed to from the house superstars.

I arrived about midway through Helicopter Showdown’s opening set to find the same intense wobbles that I first heard from them at the I Love This City festival near San Francisco, Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, only one member of the Bay Area native group was in attendance as HS was playing a set earlier that day in Miami. I was looking forward to the overly enthusiastic and hectic “deck swapping” set I had seen before, but I can hardly say my ears were disappointed with the show. However, while the lone mustached member of HS played a great set, the real performance Saturday night belonged to Dillon Francis.

With slicked back hair and his trademark Hawaiian shirt, Dillon Francis took the stage about half past midnight and transitioned from the extremely heavy drops to a feel-good sound that got the crowd moving as one. He started his set with a lot of originals, including IDGAFOS, and really got the light sticks that always fill Enclave’s dance floor dancing in unison. While the show was really enjoyable through the first half of his set, it really took a turn for the insane when he started playing more mainstream “clubstep” tracks. Enclave provided plenty of “interesting” entertainers on stage (including a girl dressed as LMFAO and another wearing an over-sized wizard mask) to go along with Dillon’s set full of bangers, including Knife Party’s “Centipede” and NERO’s “Must Be the Feeling.” The crowd was the perfect size for people to “reasonably” let loose and I certainly took advantage, leaving the club at least a few water pounds lighter. When he announced his last song before the 3 am close I was left wanting much more; but while this was my first time catching a full Dillon Francis set, it will certainly not be the last. Mad Decent Chicago please!

Full Album on the Enclave Facebook

Article by: Tyler Scheid