Partly Cloudy, 64°
Thousands gathered at a sold out Skrillex show last night at Providence Performing Arts Center to watch electronic musician Skrillex unwrap and insert a Skrillex CD into a very big CD player.
The Skrillex concert received widespread critical and popular acclaim, with some critics describing the performance as “an intimate evening,” “a validation of contemporary music” and even “so f****** dirty.”
“There’s just nothing like live music,” said Jake Courtney ’16, who insisted that he was a Skrillex fan before Skrillex was even called Skrillex. “Last night we saw a new Skrillex, even more stripped-down, more raw. You could practically hear the sound of his fingers on the play button.”
Fans who showed up early were rewarded when Skrillex actually unwrapped the CD on stage, after a brief struggle with the plastic wrapping.
The show cost $145 to attend, but Skrillex supporters maintain that it was a bargain. Jane Herdinier ’15 said that it was definitely worth the $130 price difference between buying a Skrillex CD and watching Skrillex play a Skrillex CD.
“It’s so rare for an artist to sound better live than on CD, but he’s one of those talents,” she said. “It just sounded better when Track 8 skipped because you knew it was Skrillex who scratched the CD.”
Courtney said he really appreciated the eclectic setlist pulled from a single album, which included a rare acoustic rendition of “Kill Everybody.” He said he was excited when he realized that Skrillex had pressed shuffle. But Courtney said that his favorite Skrillex song of the night was actually one of the Skrillex remixes of another Skrillex song on the same album.
“He was all like, ‘WUB WUB WUBWUBBAWUB WUWUWUWBUBDUBDUBUBUBUDAH, WUB WUB TSKTSKTSKCHKRKRKRKR,’ and then the drop, ‘WUBWUBWUBWUBEEEEEEEEEEESPLEDUBWUBWUB,’” Courtney stated. “And then he was like, ‘WUB.’”
Skrillex also garnered critical support from the electronic music blogosphere, getting called “the voice of our generation” and “the poor man’s fax machine.”
“His ostentatious, yet caustic “Kill Everybody” is a masterful work—a chef-d’oeuvre reminiscent of John Cage’s later concertos and even Marcel Duchamp’s most provocative found sculptures," said Providence Sun-Times resident music critic Gary Highly. “Skrillex is constantly pushing us to ask ourselves, ‘What is music?’”
Sonny “Skrillex” John Moore, who happened to be at the show last night, mentioned that Providence is one of Skrillex’s favorite cities in which to listen to himself, Skrillex.
