When you’re a mega star DJ/producer like Avicii, there’s always tremendous pressure to bring your A-game to every show. The flip side to that is the biggest stars thrive under pressure and go beyond everyones expectations. During Friday night’s 4th ever installment of ClubGlow’s “SUPERGLOW”, Avicii provided an excellent set for all in attendance at the D.C. Armory.
Avicii is a transcendent artist whose popularity goes far past the electronic dance music world. From being a poster-boy for Ralph Lauren to appearing in Bud Light commercials, his music carries over to the mainstream crowd with ease. As a result, he’s reeled in countless young people to the scene, and for that he deserves a large amount of credit. He is a massive part of the EDM revolution currently taking place in the United States. Although some dance music fans may not like their favorite DJ’s in the mainstream limelight, Avicii understands that his core fans are smart house music fans. He knows that the bread & butter to his success and maintaining credibility is focusing on being an excellent house music DJ/producer, not a top 40 artist. Avicii certainly proved this with an outstanding electro-house filled set at SUPERGLOW.
According to an interview he did with MagneticMag, Avicii claims to have two aliases that describe his style – Avicii and Tim Berg – and both were on display during his 2 hour and 45 minute set. He says that Avicii is more of his crowd-pleasing side, for at least 20% of his set he showcased that persona by playing his most popular hits such as ‘Fade Into Darkness’, ‘I Could Be the One (NickTim)’, ‘Levels’, and ‘Seek Bromance’. There is no doubt that those are some of the songs that most of his crowds look forward to hearing. However, I think he strategically used his hit songs as segments in his set to slow down and control the pace when needed. The other 80% of his timeslot was spent as Tim Berg, who he says is “an anteater or some equally badass underground-like animal.”
Acting as Tim Berg for most of his performance, he took on a creative mentality and strung together some of the most badass sounding songs in all of electro-house. He kept the energy high by playing songs like Sander van Doorn’s ‘Kangaroo’, Dog Blood’s ‘Next Order’, Promise Land’s remix of ‘Don’t’ You Worry Child’, and Tujamo & Plastik Funk’s ‘Who’. In addition to the high energy electro, he dropped some Ibiza-like tech house that you’d hear from Carl Cox as well as a few “No-ID” house songs that had a very dark and ominous tone to them.
My favorite moment of the night was when he played ‘Silhouette’ because it was probably the biggest display of unity that I’ve yet to see at a show. Looking around, there were numerous groups of friends with their arms on each other’s shoulders, singing Salem Al-Faqir’s verses. The only bad part about such a great night is that it had to end.
All in all, Avicii delivered on high expectations and showed why he’s one of today’s top artists. He maintains great balance between pleasing the masses and displaying his moxie as an elite electro house DJ. He’s ascending to the neighborhood of greatness and is a must-see when he drops by your city.
Image Credit – Club Glow / Doug van Sant / Tania Hauyon
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