When you have a crowd of Cinco de Mayo revelers on the dance floor, it’s bound to be a shitshow – and last Friday at The Black Box was the best kind of shitshow you could ask for. With Jantsen as our headliner of the night, there was still plenty of time to down tequila shots, which I soon found out was pretty necessary after hearing the openers. This new trend of dubstep called Riddim can go to hell, and it almost makes me sad because I can see the drum and bass influence is there but the mundane wub after wub rhythms could only be tolerated under more alcohol. So I obliged.
Much to the delight of my ears and others I’m sure, Jantsen came on around 12:30 and wasted no time in delivering some rowdy yet interesting bass heavy tracks. M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” was a sick surprise, and he even layered in some sweet drum and bass too, which I’d desperately been craving. “Like A Pimp” by David Banner and Scarface’s ‘Never’ were among the other hip-hop favorites he played, and for some reason this inspired someone to ‘open up the pit’.
Have you ever seen a mosh pit where no one is actually pushing each other, but just banging their heads simultaneously? I was cracking up but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate how rad it is to see a hyped ass crowd. The hype became even more real when he dropped ‘Lost in the Crowd’ and ‘Red Step’. The last 20 minutes of his set were probably my favorite, because it was literally heater after heater, with the crowd’s energy rattling the walls. You can imagine the insanity when he chose ‘Let’s Get iLL’ as the closer track – everyone went completely nuts. It’s kind of unfair to play such bangers without an after-party for ragers to hit up next, but nevertheless it was an exceptional performance.
