Alesso and Adventure Club Battle Poor Audio Quality to Please Congress Crowd (Event Review)

A lot of people don’t “get” electronic music. In particular, they don’t understand why you need to see a DJ live, let alone see them multiple times. If you’re not watching them play instruments or listening to their voices live, what are you going for?

The beauty of live electronic music is in the energy of the crowd, and the opportunity to forget about your everyday life for just a couple of hours. The beauty of live electronic music is being surrounded by the sound, feeling the intensity of the drop and being able to hear parts of the music that don’t come out so clearly on your computer speakers. It’s about hearing new music and old music; songs by the DJ you’re seeing and songs by other DJs you may not know.

With that said, it’s a bit difficult to articulate the value in live house or dubstep on a sound system that is totally garbled in a “hazardous” theater.

This isn’t the kind of review I hoped I’d be writing. Alesso and Adventure Club represent the brightest upcoming talent in their respective genres of EDM. If you’ve seen them live before, like I have, you know that their shows make you feel alive. Last Saturday, Alesso and Adventure Club played sets that were potentially some of the best in Chicago so far this year, but the terrible audio at the Congress Theater made it difficult to appreciate the show completely.

When I arrived in the middle of Adventure Club’s set, I noticed only one member of the dubstep duo was on stage. I also noticed that the volume was VERY low. The Congress has encountered some complaints about noise in the past, which could be the root cause for this precautionary move. I’ve been to the many times Congress before, but on Saturday the audio was so distorted that I had to make a conscious effort to not let it distract me. The sound was so low that a smart mashup of ‘Bangarang’ and ‘Wonder Wall’ fell flat, but the extremely enthusiastic crowd danced as if it was at full blast. The girls of Krewella made an appearance on stage for ‘Rise & Fall,’ which brought the excitement of their hometown audience to another level. Leighton of Adventure Club finished up his set with a mashup of Above & Beyond’s ‘Sun & Moon,’ and finally with ‘Crave You’.

As Alesso took the decks, I prayed that the volume would be cranked up.

But my prayers apparently were not heard, and neither were Alesso’s tracks. Don’t get me wrong, though – the portions of the set that I could hear were excellent. Alesso came ready to impress, and it’s impossible to deny his talent: his high-quality uplifting progressive house tracks that have a certain sentimental quality (‘Years,’ ‘City of Dreams, ‘Calling’), and his live blend of popular hits and grittier tracks. I particularly enjoyed his mashup of ‘Antidote’ and the shower of strobe lights that accompanied it. The Swede incorporated REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ mixed with an ID track in the middle of the set. He said after the show that this ID is an original track of his, which he plans on releasing with the REM lyrics. He has paired the two records together in all of his live sets thus far and believes that fans will recognize the ID track more easily with the lyrics. This, he mentioned, would be his first release with a vocal sample.

While the volume peaked around 1 AM, it was still quiet enough that you could hear the conversations of all of the people surrounding you. I managed to tune out everyone else just as the show closed, allowing me to appreciate Alesso’s beautifully crafted remix of One Republic’s ‘If I Lose Myself’.

This night at the Congress made me think deeply about the music market in Chicago. Have you noticed that the EDM fan base in this city is MASSIVE?! This summer there’s an EDM-specific festival every month: EDC Chicago, Spring Awakening, Wavefront, and North Coast Music Festival. The 21+ crowd has year-round access to spectacular sound systems at the Mid, Spybar, Soundbar, and now Palladium. And in the past year, we’ve experienced DJs in many different places, including the UIC Pavilion and the United Center. We saw what a stellar setting those places provide. Obviously, people here will pay to see good music. If we are willing to pay for it, we deserve the opportunity to see shows in safe facilities with equipment that can do justice to the talent playing there. Hopefully Alesso and Adventure Club will return soon, and there won’t be anything to detract from the delivery of their incredible music.

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