Say what you will about the hipster crowd, but I’ve noticed that they aren’t lacking in the "hot girls on ecstasy" department. This contingent was out in full force and it was the bearded man, A-Trak, they came to see, which is funny considering he went unnoticed as he strolled through the crowd before his set (only to scamper away once I pointed to him for my photographer). Before the dirty hipsters got to see the man that, so often, tricks us into thinking that Kanye isn’t that much of a douche, they were treated to a couple of nice sets from Trakedemics and Treasure Fingers. Then came Theophilus London, a rapper who felt like a cross between Spank Rock and Pharrell.
I couldn't really tell what he was saying, because it was loud and I'm old, but he put on a good performance, enough so for me to seek out a few of his songs and then track him down on Twitter, where he would later say about the SF show “Majority of the crowd def. on E pills.” Not that I’m trying to have an ongoing theme here, but it's just funny to hear when artists notice. Either way, the guy had a presence on stage that made me wonder why I hadn’t heard of him before. I’m sure I’ll see him on “teh Internets” for some time to come.
Then came A-Trak’s big dose of bright lights, which made taking notes during the show a lot easier (he was already gaining points with me). The man tore it up, sending all the kids in front of the stage into twirls of fury. I looked at my friend and asked him if his roommate (who's a DJ) could do that, to which he replied that he most certainly could not.
Dude was scratching from side-to-side, ripping in beats that ranged from the likes of Daft Punk to Tears for Fears to KC and the Sunshine band. All of this hard work and he waited until an hour into the show to mention that he might be a little sweaty. I got to admit, if I was turning knobs and scratching disks like he was, I’d have been drinking a lot more liquids and I’d probably look equally as cool doing it.
In retrospect, this whole DJing dream I had about five minutes ago seems like a whole lot of hard work. Maybe finding the right beat while the music is blaring and people are sweating up small dark rooms isn’t that easy. It seems that this A-Trak fellow might be good at that sort of thing.
Then, just when I thought I had seen enough he announced the presence of his special guest.
It was his stuffed pony named, Lester. He walked to the front of his DJ table and put it up for the whole room to see, but more so just to make all the E-Tards jealous.
Artists:
A-Track – djatrak.com
Theophilus London – theophiluslondon.wordpress.com
