[Night Out] Electric Mantis, Said The Sky, & Illenium @ Highline Ballroom (04/01/2016)
You thought I was done going to shows for the week!
THAT'S ADORABLE!
How could I POSSIBLY quit my streak when one of my new favorite finds was in town!?
I can't remember exactly what took place that one fine day a few months back on Soundcloud when Anchorage producer Electric Mantis fell into my lap, but I have been vibing out to his tracks ever since. The track that sold me on his abilities was "The One"but i've made sure to spend some quality time rifling through his Soundcloud profile feeling him out.
While he hasn't quite hit his stride of cranking out nonstop bangers yet, I can tell that the homey has just started to find his footing and is starting to dig into his signature sound. Let me be clear: this dude is going places. I mean, the dude has already racked up a few MILLION streams on Soundcloud. (Calm down, that wasn't all me, although I definitely have contributed to those numbers since then.)
Also, remember when like 100k streams per song felt like a huge ass deal? That feels like another lifetime now. #MySpace
ANYWAY. I had completely spaced on this show. I knew it was coming almost a month ago but the date just got away from me. Luckily, despite it being a sold out show miracles do happen and about a half hour before our hero took the stage I found out I was able to step foot inside Highline Ballroom and confirm my suspicions that he is in fact the real deal. I sadly arrived late to his set because I was camera-less in Bushwick getting shit done with StyleIt, who graciously lent me her camera so I didn't have to double back to Harlem to get mine. It was quite the scramble to get there to make sure I got maximum exposure to someone who is typically 4,500 miles away from yours truly at any given moment.
It was definitely worth all the effort. Despite not including a ton of his original material in the part of his set I was able to catch, I reveled in all of the creative decisions he made. Even in his remixes I could hear the little bits of his personality peppered in. It's not often that a producer's style translates from his original tracks to his reworks this early on, which is why I can confidently infer that we're patiently waiting on a diamond in the rough to get trimmed down and polished with this guy.
It's admittedly been since the night of the Don Diablo interview that I really spent a full night at an "EDM" show. Even then, I wasn't really... out with "the people", per say. I forgot how many characters will come out of the woodwork to take drugs and dance the night away.
This show started fairly promptly at 7 though, so the exponential "lit-ness" part was confusing. I did have a few favorite fans from the night. There was the GoPro #teen that was engrossed in getting quality footage of all of the DJs for the night. He was next to a quintessential EDM bro in his baby blue tank top who was rolling like crazy and was convinced I was trying to snap photos of him all night (I did get snap video of how ridiculous he was acting but that's about it).
I live for this sweet GoPro #teen tbh
And then there was #EDMShey. It's coming up on a year since Sprout and I went across the pond to drink and get in as many hugs with Shey and Kim, so occasionally when I find myself missing one of them I end up running into their doppelganger in some random place. I don't think #EDMShey was on drugs, but man was he high on life. #EDMShey was so happy and danced harder than anyone else in the front row. He noticed that I was trying to capture him as he danced the night away and chose to pause to pose for a snap.
#EDMShey is bae, but cannot replace actual Shey
I should say that Said The Sky and Illenium both nailed their sets as well, I just wasn't as emotionally invested in them as I was Electric Mantis, who was great.
Did I mention Electric Mantis is great?
He's great AND he's going to be heading out on his first official tour in May on the west coast! It's going to be great, if you're on the left coast, you should definitely make it a point to check him out.
You can check out my photos from the show below along with the dates for Electric Mantis' upcoming tour.
