By Bob Mandich
Late Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) the Rey Jing masses gathered at Concord Music Hall for a dubstep show. Besides being most 15 year olds new favorite band, dubstep has evolved over the years from being the go to after party electronic subgenre to your mom probably knowing what you’re talking about when you bring it up. In shorter words, dubstep is huge now. With popularity comes fame and with fame comes haters saying “insert dj name here” sold out. On Saturday night we were treated to a duo that can never be accused of selling out, EOTO. Since 2008 they have been expanding the way that we think about electronic music, more specifically, dubstep. “100% live & improvised, all the time” is how they advertise themselves and there’s no fallacies in that. Every EOTO show is completely different from the one before it and will be nothing like the one after it. While fans my gripe about the amount of popularity they’ve achieved and how it drives up things like the cost of a ticket ($34 online the day of the show) one thing remains true: They are innovators who are worth the cost of admission. Take all of that into account plus the fact that the show was scheduled to go until 4 in the morning and one could argue that Saturday night had a throwback feel to it. Instead of winding down from the show before though everybody and their mother (somebody’s mother had to be there) we ready to Ray John.
Jason Hann & Michael Travis took the stage around 1am to a thunderous ovation. Many in attendance were repeat offenders from the night before but there were also a lot of people who had yet to get their womp fix. Jason and Michael had them covered. Their 1st set opened slow with a very eerie yet mellow feel to the music. We would rage, we just had to explore a little bit beforehand. As the pace of the music picked up so did the crowds eagerness to let go of all inhibitions and simply go crazy. EOTO was definitely aware of this, teasing large drops only to extend the groove a little bit longer which in turn would make the big one that much sweeter. The 1st set was definitely more laid back but still switched up grooves and tempos like only EOTO knows how to. One thing that makes EOTO stand out from the rest is their ability to maintain a solid fluidity throughout their set, going from hyper speed to sea turtle with such ease that the flow of the set never seems jumbled or distorted. A lot of djs could learn a thing or two from watching an EOTO set. Set 2 was highlighted by it’s heaviness and a remix of “Electric Avenue”. It’s not secret that Jason Hann loves to cover some of our favorite songs from pop culture’s past but this has to be one of his best. Everybody in the crowd was giddy with glee, dancing around and spilling drinks like it didn’t mean anything. In that moment though it really didn’t because we were all loving life and not wanting the fun to end anytime soon. The duo came back on for the encore at 3:58am and, because of a strict curfew, had to cut it short at 4:02. Said encore was very deep, spacey, weird and kind of beautiful in its own way. It’s a shame they couldn’t let it go just a little bit longer so it could really take off. All in all it was a tremendous show from EOTO and we thank them personally for constantly evolving and changing the way that the jaded see dubstep and all of electronic music. Until next time Rage On EOTO, Ray John.
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