— SpacePack

Deadmau5 ft. Chris James – The Veldt (Tommy Trash Remix)

Just some random musical musings on Veld and the two headliners.

Day Two bested Day One.

Great lineup, tons of variety for everyone in attendance. I think the organizers underestimated the pull that some of the artists would have. I would have loved to see Cosmic Gate, Tommy Trash but in particular, Gareth Emery, throw down on the main stage. The cozy confines of the tent (minus the poop) suited them just fine.

Of the sets that I, myself, happened to view in person, I would have to put Gareth Emery, Tommy Trash, Deadmau5, Ben Gold, Avicii, and Max Vangelli & AN21 above the rest. Honourable mentions to Cosmic Gate, Bassnectar, Cazzette, Knife Party, Pierce Fulton, Aly & Fila, & Steve Angello. Everybody else gets a meh.

Deadmau5 put on a good show, but nowhere near his best I believe. Even with the technical difficulties, the show was still enjoyable and featured some of his better tracks. With that being said, you can definitely tell that this guy is not in a great place right now and it showed in his set. While his more tech-leaning material is great (and sounded incredible at Downsview), I felt that his set was very linear. It just never seemed to reach that peak that I thought it would. Considering that it was his hometown gig with 20,000+ in attendance, I really thought he would bring it and give it that over the top feel.

Pains me to say this, but Avicii put on a great, if not the best, set and show of the weekend. I haven’t been a big fan of Avicii for some time now (predictable sets, productions, onstage body movements and attire), but I could not hate on the work he did Sunday night. Everything was on: song selection, transitions, performance, crowd engagement. For two hours straight he literally had everyone’s emotions encapsulated in a knob on his mixer. It literally felt like when the set had reached its apex and there was no way he could top it, he somehow just nudged it a bit further. Basically, he took it to “whole ‘nother level” (holy shit, the unintended pun right here) a bunch of times. He managed to do what Deadmau5 failed to do in my opinion in creating a performance that featured virtually no low points. Kudos (could still work on the song selection though).