I walked into the warehouse-turned-club on the Lower East Side around 11:30, got settled and realized Joel was already spinning, sans mau5head. Compared to Meowingtons Hax, where every head in the crowd was mesmerized by every beat, wub and blink from the stage, the set felt a little anti-climactic.
He stuck to newer tracks from 4×4=12, and the previews of the new album he’s been playing live for a few months now. Going in, the only track I was really dying to hear was Professional Griefers, and I was not disappointed. He ended with Strobe. There weren’t any surprises, he stuck mostly to his own tracks, and only popped on the Mau5head for a Cthulu Sleeps and a few other tracks. It was definitely a dj set, not a show.
I can’t find one picture from NYE of Joel smiling or having a good time during his 3 hour set. I don’t remember him saying anything to the crowd, either. I was going to bring up a post I read of his where he’d been talking about dealing with depression (I know that feel, bro) thinking that may be the cause but a little catching up on Twitter gives better insight: Deadmau5’s twitter shows he thought the event was run crap, and admittedly, it was.
As this is a website focused on the music, I’ll let Deadmau5’s re-tweets & the angry notes on the Area Event Facebook Page do the talking (note: they shut off wall posts. wonder why.) I can, however, offer some fun facts about my personal experience:
1) The women’s bathroom had doors, but no stalls – just a line of toilets and by 11:30 they were all trashed. I had to pee next to a line of girls before I even got my first drink. If you weren’t VIP, you had to pee outside.
2) VIP Mezzanine had a great view of the weight-bearing pillars of Pier 36.
3) The balloons never dropped at midnight, or ever.
All that being said, it was New Years Eve with Deadmau5 – personally, I had a great time. The space was big enough to take a breather or create your own dance space, and being right on the water on an unseasonably warm New York New Years gave the whole place a nice relaxed vibe. A warehouse party with Deadmau5 is probably unlikely to happen any other place in the near future. Unlike parties at some of the trendier clubs where people go just to say they went, it really felt like everyone at Pier 36 was there out of love for Deadmau5.
Please, Mr. Mau5, don’t let AreaEvent turn you off to New York, we LOVE you! I made this graphic hoping you’ll come back, and will start a petition to have you be the first EDM artist to take over Carnegie Hall if you tweet me @Yunacef. <3
Disclaimer: I’ve had the privilege of seeing Deadmau5 three times in 2011. At Ultra Miami, on the Meowingtons Hax tour, and this past weekend at New Years Eve on Pier 36.
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