Over the past 3 months, a surge of exciting dubstep shows in the nation’s capital has featured the likes of NERO, Zeds Dead, Doctor P, and Flux Pavilion as a part of Steez Promo’s “MEGA”. Other recent impressive individual shows included Porter Robinson, Dillon Francis, and Rusko. With so much star-power and continuous improvement in each of their performances, it’s difficult to rate who’s been the best. However, after this past Tuesday’s show at D.C.’s 9:30 Club, it’s clear that Feed Me deserves to be mentioned at the top of this list.
In 2012 Feed Me chose Washington D.C. as one of the last stops of his U.S. tour, but he flipped the script in 2013 and made D.C. his first stop. The Mau5trap sensation had a variety of openers in 2012, however this year he chose electro-house prodigy Mord Fustang to open the majority of his U.S. shows. The name leads you to think he’s an American DJ, but Mord Fustang is actually from the tiny country of Estonia. After releasing several hits at the tail end of 2011, he gained the respect of EDM listeners by winning Beatport’s 2012 Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
In order to preserve Feed Me’s stage behind curtains, Mord Fustang was given a small table for his equipment at stage front, but that didn’t stop him from supplying big sounds. He describes his music as, “adventurously nude fluctuant rainbow-coated thunderstorm with arpeggios, 1-up mushrooms and disco basslines, plus a wobble or two” and that’s precisely how the set played out. The tunes he arranged varied from mellow electro to funky electro-house, all of which got the crowd ramped up and moving. He really raised the energy in the second half of his set by playing his signature songs “The Electric Dream”, “Windwalker”, “Lick the Rainbow”, and closing out with “Taito”. One of the more stand-out observations of his set was that he used an iPad to mix his songs, in addition to a traditional mixdeck and laptop.
Once Mord Fustang finished, the anticipation for Feed Me nearly reached a breaking point. As the crowd chanted, the curtains suddenly parted, and the stage lit up revealing his mind-blowing “Teeth” stage. He opened with “To the Stars” and kept the intensity high from that point through the rest of his set. Just like Pretty Lights and Deadmau5, Feed Me is one of a handful of DJ’s who can pull off playing only his own songs for an entire show. He has such a wide range of sounds, tempos, and vocals in his song portfolio that he can control the set and keep it unpredictable. He pulled all the tricks out of the hat by playing older tracks like “Green Bottle” to newer tracks like “Death By Robot”. His variations of dubstep are very unique because he can conduct sci-fi sounding headbangers that will leave your neck stiff or gentler dubstep that incorporates house synths, classical piano, and funk.
Dubstep artists are mainly known for performing at large raves and festivals. But Feed Me’s songs have such a dance element to them that he could transition into a resident nightclub DJ if he really wanted to. His set was a solid 2 hours and he left the crowd wanting more. The most memorable moments of the night were when he dropped “One Click Headshot” which had the crowd raging hard in unison and seeing a video graphic of his little green monster character moving around on the Teeth’s screens. Feed Me only tours the U.S. once a year and his 2013 list of stops is particularly short. Be sure to catch him if he stops by your city because it’s an experience you won’t want to miss.
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