Culture

Warning, warning, warning; the monotonous sounds of MC Beau bounce across a wave of moving bodies, all swaying in time to the rhythmic wop wop of Nero’s beat. The crowd only stops moving for a split second to catch the Foreign Beggars MC as he jumps off a speaker; once he’s back on stage the shoulder-dropping, pupil-popping beats continue.
This was the scene at Union Hall as the last night of the three gig event that was the Easter Weekender came to a close. It was an event that brought some of the biggest names in dubstep, drum & bass, electro and hip-hop to Dunedin, and Critic sent me along to see how it all went down.

 
The first weekend of doom brought Danny Byrd to the stage at Urban Factory on April 9. We arrived at Urban to see a long line stretching down the street as a result of a broken ticket scanner; judging by the state of some creatures, it wasn’t the only long line they’d been involved in that night. At all of the gigs it was very evident that we are still well and truly in the midst of the ecstasy generation; dubstep music and drugs go hand in hand like Charlie Sheen and his crack pipe. However, we were there for the music.

 
There were no big names on before Danny Byrd but the DJs that were on did a good job getting the crowd moving. Danny Byrd came to the stage at two o’clock; with hits like “Tonight” and “Ill behavior” he had the potential to get the crowd raging, given they were already chewing their faces off in excitement. However, he only played for an hour and gave us only small tastes of his hits which was disappointing, especially considering people paid pretty good money to see him. In saying that, what he did play was great with his new songs getting the packed crowd going. The after party at the break was a nice warm down after the sweat and intensity of Urban Factory, plus the DJ there thrashed the dubstep to keep the creatures charging.
 

B-Complex and The Upbeats were next on the agenda at Urban Factory, playing on April 16, but unfortunately this author wasn’t able to make it to the event. After a hard battle to find people who could actually remember most of their night, I managed to find a few reliable sources who gave me the run down on how it went. With a smaller crowd than at Danny Byrd, there was potential for more breathing space as The Upbeats and B-Complex laid down some vicious tunes. From almost all reports, B-Complex were insane with the majority of people even saying that they were better than Danny Byrd. We’ll catch him next time he’s in Dunedin.

 
The two Urban Factory gigs were nice teaser events before the real deal on Wednesday April 19 at Union Hall. The night’s line-up included Trolley-Snatcha, Foreign Beggars, Skrillex and Nero, giving dubstep fans fair reason to be aroused especially as Union Hall has much more shredding space than Urban Factory. We got there just in time to see Trolley-Snatcha spinning some grimy beats, getting the crowd nice and sweaty before Foreign Beggars. It had been questionable whether Foreign Beggars’ style would fit into the dubstep-dominated line-up, but they nailed it. Their mix of hip-hop and dubstep with an upbeat tempo was just what the crowd needed. They even played their hit song “Contact” which was just what everyone was asking for, making it a hard ask for Nero and Skrillex to try and top this.
 

As we saw with Danny Byrd, and as we were about to see with Nero and Skrillex, they didn’t play many of their big songs, instead choosing to play new music and other artists’ music and giving us only tastes of their big songs. This was a bit disappointing but what they did play was smoother than a two year old’s ass and dirtier than the guy grabbing it, so made up for it.
 

Skrillex is more alternative than a Wellington kid doing a BA in Philosophy, his half-shaved head and emo attire topping off his raging music. As one true Skrillex fan said, “The last time America dropped something this heavy, Japan blew up”, a very slight exaggeration but he was amazing.
 

Nero should have blown the roof off Union Hall, with the amount of awards they have won and the reputation they have for being one of the biggest dubstep artists in the world. Unfortunately they didn’t blow the roof, and if it wasn’t for the Foreign Beggars MC keeping everyone hyped up, then they would have almost been a bigger failure than the rap album by Mike “The Situation”. The music they played was alright but the crowd would have appreciated more of the songs they actually knew.

 
All in all it was a good event, but it could have been a great event. The timing of the final gig around Easter break was far from ideal and Urban Factory doesn’t handle the packed crowds as well as Union Hall does. Acts like Foreign Beggars and Skrillex were great to see live and more than lived up to expectations, but we expected more from bigger names like Nero. We look forward to the bigger and better Easter Weekender next year. In the meantime: keep rinsing.