Flux Pavilion Spring Tour – REVIEW

Recently, we attended the Chicago date of Flux Pavilion’s spring tour. You can check out our review, after the break.

Another wonderful Friday night at Congress Theater presented the master of bass, Flux Pavilion, along with up and comers Carnage and Torro Torro.  Despite all the heavy bass and grinding rhythms that Flux Pavilion delivers in his music, the two opening acts were much lighter with their tunes, and this made for a very solid opening to this amazing sold-out Chicago EDM show.  Mere hours before this show was set to take place there was controversy when alleged set times started appearing on the Congress Theater Facebook page.  Normal EDM shows at Congress begin around 9pm and generally stretch till about 1:30-2am.  At the last minute this show was announced to have a hard 9pm start time, with it being scheduled to wrap up at 12:15am.  Both online and at the show, there were many complaints about this, but I suppose it all had to do with the opener Carnage playing another set later that night at the Chicago venue The Mid.  Nevertheless, I wasn’t happy about the early show, but I went in with an open mind, and sure enough, my mind was blown.

Torro Torro is a duo from Toronto that specializes in Moombahton, Electro, and house music according to their Facebook page.  These guys blew me away with their flawless execution and command of the audience, all despite them not being very famous.  It seems like every producer/group has a remix of the track “Clarity” by Zedd, but the Torro Torro remix that was dropped towards the middle of their set was a great addition to an already fun and bouncy hour of music.  One thing I particularly appreciated about these guys is that they didn’t get on stage and talk/yell a lot between songs, they just did their thing and looked to be having the time of their lives while doing so.

Carnage is what I believe to be the reason the show ended so early.  It’s a regular experience for many people to go to a show at Congress Theater and then visit The Mid afterwards for the after party.  Along with hit producer 3LAU, Carnage was set to perform at the after show later after his Congress set.  Some of the hits that Carnage dropped at Congress included “Fade Into Darkness” From AVICII, “Mercy” from Kanye West, and my favorite, “Fuckin Problem” from A$AP Rocky.  Carnage was mostly a set filled with trap, which is to say there was plenty of rap songs mixed up in his bass and beats.  I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard and I was happy to have learned about another solid artist that deserves some more listening.

Like I said before, this show was cut incredibly short so Flux Pavilion only had an hour and fifteen minutes to impress a sold-out crowd of Chicago ravers.  Within the first five minutes alone Flux incorporated eight songs into his set.  Opening with “The Scientist,” he then moved to “OneTwoThree (Make Your Body Wanna),” “Starlight.” and “Internet Friends VIP” from Knife Party.  That short 75 minute set was filled with very little talking into the microphone, and plenty of heavy bass drops that had the crowd cheering, screaming, and dancing.  “Bulletproof” from Doctor P, “Bootleg Fireworks” from Dillon Francis, and the top track “Gold Dust” from DJ Fresh were among some of the top songs from the hour.  The music did not disappoint me in the slightest, but Flux Pavilion is unfortunately not known for having wild visuals and lights like other artists.  Besides a small LED board behind him, and some of the colorful house lights that were utilized, there wasn’t much to look at during this show.  EDM is all about the music, but half the experience is the visuals and lights that flash and strobe and change right along to the beat.  These elements were missing from this show, but taking into consideration the time constraints, I think Flux did a solid job of holding it down and make some bodies want to dance.

Information about the review…
Tour:  Flux Pavilion Spring Tour
Acts:  Flux Pavilion, Carnage, Torro Torro
Reviewer:  Michael Nutting
Date:  March 29, 2013
Venue:  Congress Theater in Chicago, IL