U-Street Music Hall is Washington D.C.’s dive dance club and EDM fans love it. It’s essentially a large, dark, 300 person-capacity basement with a couple bars, thumping sound system, and an elevated DJ booth. With no fancy lights, extravagant stage, or special LED screens, it’s the perfect place for up and coming DJ’s to showcase their abilities and for fans to come dance.
While occasionally a DJ legend like Moby will perform at U-Street Music Hall, it’s extremely rare that a festival headlining DJ like Kaskade throw down there. However, it’s the grungy, underground qualities that made Uhall the perfect fit for a Kaskade show on his ‘It’s You, It’s Me Redux’ tour.
Ryan hit the decks at 12:30 AM and provided a blissful 2.5 hour set that was nothing short of stunning. On this Friday night he wanted us to take any live sets, singles, or official Kaskade mashups we’ve heard from him in the last 5 years and just forget about them. He essentially took on a different DJ persona by exempting all progressive and electro house tracks and playing only old-school house and deep house songs.
Admittedly, I wasn’t the biggest deep house fan coming into the show. This EDM sub-genre isn’t as popular on the festival circuit and DJ’s at big shows just don’t play it. As a result, I wasn’t sure what to expect or how much I’d enjoy it. But to my surprise, it was one of the best displays of a DJ/artist that I’ve ever seen. Just like a top end film director, Kaskade had a vision for what he wanted to provide for his fans. He brought this vision to life and the result was spectacular.
In the same way that Armin van Buuren puts fans in “A State Of Trance” with a trance set, or the way Carl Cox takes fans on a fantasy expedition with a tech house set, Kaskade took us on a musical journey with this soulful deep house set.
If you’ve seen any of the interviews from “The Collaborators” of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories album, they emphasize how Daft Punk wanted to get away from these synthesized electronic sounds and re-insert the “human element” back into dance music.
Similarly, Kaskade’s choice of songs truly displayed his passion and they evoked feelings of euphoria for all in attendance. While he obviously played many songs from his album ‘It’s You, It’s Me’, he also played several tunes from ‘In the Moment’ and ‘Love Mysterious’. I didn’t expect him to play anything from ‘Fire and Ice’, but he did decided to drop the ICE remix of ‘Llove’, which carries a very raw, old-school beat. My favorite moment of the night was when he played the original version of ‘Angel On My Shoulder’. It was a very spiritual juncture during the set as the crowd sang in unison and he sang back to us.
Overall, this was one of the most unique sets I’ve attended as an EDM fan. Kaskade’s management and U-Street Music Hall also deserve a huge amount of credit for making this experience happen. Even though the show was sold out at a small venue, they made sure not to over-sell tickets so there was plenty of room for attendees to move around and dance comfortably.
Note: For anyone who has the chance to go to the remaining shows, make sure to seize the opportunity and share your experience with your fellow dance music fans.
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