Markus Schulz is on top of the world. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s a week into his cross-country North American ‘Scream’ bus tour, where he gets to spend weeks behind the decks – a place he’s called home for over two decades. His most recent target? Washington, D.C., where he entertained the masses at Echostage – the District’s premier concert venue – over the weekend.
With a smile permanently plastered on his face and his hands outstretched, he coaxed the crowd assembled at Echostage on a balmy Saturday night for every ounce of energy they could muster. As he conducted his audience in rhythmic undulations timed to the beat of the kickdrum, it was clear that the emotion of the room was controlled by those hands, whether they were reaching for the ceiling or flying furiously over the mixer.
Sometimes that emotion was, brooding; for example, when he played his recent collaboration with Ferry Corsten, ‘Loops & Tings’ – a tributary rework of a classic 1993 track by Jens. Other times, it was like all the greatest moments in your life were being swirled into a ball and exuded from the speakers in the form of amplified sound. Uplifting tracks like Corsten’s ‘Live Forever’, featuring the ethereal vocals of Aruna can attest to that. Often, he ran the gamut from one to the other in a matter of minutes.
Simply put, Schulz is a master of his craft.
The D.C. stop of the tour began with a progressive-heavy set from KhoMha – after Glow resident DJ Roberto Gonzalez warmed up the bass bins for a few hours – and as a relative newcomer to the young Columbian’s take on trance and house I was blown away by his track selection and reading of the crowd. Then again, as Schulz’s Coldharbour Recordings “Artist of the Year” in 2011, I probably shouldn’t have expected much less.
With little interruption, San Francisco’s genre-defying The M Machine took the stage. My experiences with the trio are the exact opposite of my experiences with KhoMha; that is, I’ve had a slight obsession with them ever since OWSLA put out their ‘Metropolis, Pt. I’ EP back in spring 2012. A year later and hot on the heels of ‘Metropolis, Pt. II’, The M Machine landed a touring gig with Schulz, bringing their full live experience to the stage in support of the trance mainstay.
While I’ll admit I scratched my head somewhat when I saw the trio on the bill in support of Schulz, any doubts about clashing stylistic choices were erased from my mind about two minutes into their set Saturday, and I got down for the remaining 58 minutes. The M Machine’s hour-long journey of industrial-meets-electro served as a perfect introduction to Schulz. When the last few notes of their powerful ‘Locked Out Of Heaven’ remix faded away, the lights dimmed and the anticipation was palpable.
It was time to slay some unicorns.
Markus Schulz took the stage to blasts of compressed air and an explosion of confetti cannons, with the now-packed dancefloor roaring its approval. He wasted no time diving headfirst into a nearly three hour set filled with a roller coaster ride of builds, ambient fills, and deftly timed drops. In the brief moments he had to revel in the energy he was exuding, Schulz was like a kid in the midst of the best day of his life; he waved to the crowd, he clutched his head with his hands in feigned disbelief, and he even stepped back from the mixer and played airplane in a moment I can only describe as “adorable and endearing”. This wasn’t a man doing his job. This was a man loving his life.
At a certain point late in the night – or perhaps early in the morning – I felt the urge to step away from my perch beside the stage and wandered into the crowd. Maneuvering through the beaming faces and wide eyes, I found myself leaning against the back wall of the main floor, the entirety of the spectacle laid out before me. The track reached a moment where it lulled to a whisper, and I closed my eyes. I felt the warm glow of the stage lights on my eyelids as they came up slowly, matching the rising roar of the audience.
The bass came in first, a sweeping low-end that shook me from the ground up. I counted off the build in my head, tapping my foot in time, and opened my eyes just as the twang of the synth pierced the air. Through the sea of hands I could just make out Markus, head down, concentrating on this transition like a man possessed. More and more hands reached skyward, filling the air as the build reached a climax. It kicked. We jumped. “Oh my God, Washington, D.C.” Schulz’s voice floated over the crowd for the first time as we bounced to the beat, “I love you guys so much.” I think it’s safe to say the feeling was mutual.
(Markus Schulz is just getting into the swing of things on his ‘Scream’ North American bus tour, and if his Echostage show is any indicator you should probably grab tickets now. Visit his official website here for tour dates and more information.)
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