The Glitch Mob’s “Fall North American Tour 2014” – REVIEW

We recently had the opportunity to catch The Glitch Mob’s amazing live show in Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom. You can check out our review of the night’s events, after the break.

“Love Death Immortality” is the name of The Glitch Mob’s brand new hit album from February 2014, and coming in at #13 on the Billboard 200 when it debuted, 40,000 copies sold is nothing to sneeze at for these amazing glitch musicians.  The 2014 Fall Tour brought a lot of promise to the excited fans of Chicago, and while “the mob” themselves put out a fantastic performance, I couldn’t help but think the supporting acts were lacking in quality and musical style.

Aragon Ballroom has always been obscure when it comes to what time doors open and when a show actually starts.  After arriving around 8:30pm I realized I was still substantially early and hardly anyone had arrived yet.  Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, the three dudes of Chrome Sparks came out in full white attire, each to their own separate stations on the stage with various musical instruments, launch pads, and other such electronic music equipment.  After checking out the group’s social media pages, I came to find that the idea of Chrome Sparks is really only one man, and that the group has had multiple member changes over the years.  I don’t blame the weird musical style on dysfunction from the group, it was just really odd.  From straight synthesizer sounds, to what appeared to be an electric xylophone, the electronica was definitely weak with these guys.  I was, however, quite impressed with the minimalistic stage setup that this group used.  Consisting of what appeared to be regular table lamps set around the stage, combined with the usual overhead rig lights, the show had almost a darker more intimate feel to it.

The M Machine was a little bit more my speed.  Another trio of guys, this time from San Francisco, brought the show back to life quickly with a style that is all their own.  Claiming the genre of electro house, I felt that their fantastic musical style incorporated a little bit of everything from drum & bass, to deep house and dubstep influences.  With fast driving tunes in front of their iconic “M” logo, these guys made a fan out of me with this performance.  It’s also worth noting the change in the audience dynamic after The M Machine started throwing down.  Confusion seemed apparent when Chrome Sparks was doing their thing, but the people of the Aragon Ballroom lit up when they started.

edIT, Boreta, and Ooah of The Glitch Mob have brought on a new era of electronic dance music to the world.  Of course they are not the first to use different and groundbreaking new technologies to create and perform their music, but I certainly think they are the absolute best out there right now.  With each member having their own set of digital and acoustic drums, these guys all use various touch surfaces to actually launch their sounds and play their music live.  Rather than using the standard CDJ mixing decks such as most electronic performers, The Glitch Mob brings a real performance element to the genre by actually doing it live.  Not only does this base their quality of performance in reality, it attacks the stereotype that says all DJs pre-record their perfect-sounding concert sets.  Touring in support of their new album, these guys pulled from their new music, but with another full album, an EP, and a bunch of mixtapes, they certainly had plenty of music to pull from.  This was obviously a show that Chicago was waiting for, because right after the heavy beats and drumming started raining down upon the crowd, the Aragon got hyped up into a happy, rowdy, dancing, mess.

Information about this review:
Tour – The Glitch Mob’s “Fall North American Tour 2014”
Artists – The Glitch Mob, The M Machine, Chrome Sparks
Reviewer – Michael Nutting
Date – October 17, 2014
Venue – Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, IL