I must admit, I was VERY skeptical to see Axwell at Webster Hall, because Webster is traditionally a venue which hosts more electro or dubby performers in terms of electronic music, and Axwell has one of the most defining sounds in current house music. However, WH suited him perfectly. The place was packed, no doubt, which made bathrooms and bar lines a pain, but they got everyone in rather quickly, and managed the overall behavior of the crowd pretty well.
Area Events did an excellent job in terms of finding sound and lighting equipment which suited the show and venue really well. I'm not sure if it was WH or AE who incorporated the acrobat in the middle of the room from the ceiling, but it was an excellent touch, especially during the more emotional songs, because it gave a real sense of total inclusion, causing everyone to kind of look and turn around and redirect their attention to other areas in the venue.
In terms of the set - awesome. He played for about three hours, the entire time smiling and staying warm toward the crowd. He dropped all of his and SHM's classics, and notable tracks which he dropped which they are not on include Louder than Words, Silvia vs Pjanoo, Bromance, and Babylon. Toward the close of his performance, he got on the microphone to give a short and in a sense, revolutionary speech, where he explains that the first time he played in NYC it was in a small restaurant for a few people, and now he's sold out Webster Hall, and went on to talk about how house music lives in New York City. Naturally it was laced with a few obscenities and yelled in a heavy accent to get the crowd pumped, and we responded accordingly. His closing was incredible, he encored with one of SHM's oldest tracks (from back when they called themselves Supermode) called "Tell Me Why", which is probably one of my top ten favorite songs of all time, mixed with Bittersweet Symphony. After Tell Me Why, the lights faded to black out, he bowed, and the crowd cheered, when all of the sudden out of nowhere, the foreshadowing "People...." of the beginning of long-time house lyricist Deborah Cox's vocals on SHM's "Leave the World Behind" came bellowing out of Webster Hall's speaker towers acapella, and was immediately followed by every fan responding appropriately with "...can ya hear me...". Axwell did a surprise double encore with Leave the World Behind which drained any small bit of energy that we had left inside of us. All in all, the night was amazing - slightly predictable, slightly surprising, but overall incredible.
Additionally, I attended an after-party for an event at Pachita (the small private top floor of Pacha) which was kinda cool, but I snuck downstairs to the main room to catch the tail end of Boris. I have to say, for an after-hours scene, tribal-house is definitely a cool type of music to groove to. Pacha was a peculiar scene at 9am, but an interesting experience overall. They've done some decent renovations in terms of decor and light show for their 5-yr anniversary, so I'm excited to see it in full swing on Friday (for Mr. Guetta!).
To view Axwell's double encore click here.
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