After seeing thousands of Boulderites squished onto the Norlin quad for the 4/20 festivities on Monday afternoon, it was surprising to see a packed Fox Theatre for a night of high-energy techno music from DJ Rootz, Break Science and Big Gigantic.
Despite the dazed faces on a majority of students’ faces Monday, the crowd at the Fox was anything but lack-luster. Opening act Big Gigantic kicked the night off.
Big Gigantic’s name is an appropriate for the sounds produced by members Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken. Big Gigantic’s set established the tone of the evening, with high-energy electronic music. Gigantic’s music has an airy sound to it that transcended well from their recorded music to a live show. Although the crowd was a bit sparse during Big Gigantic’s set, the audience members there picked up on Gigantic’s upbeat and rhythmic music throughout the set, seeming to enjoy the extra elbowroom to dance freely with eyes closed and hands in the air. Judging from the audience ceasing to stop moving until the end of the set, Gigantic could have entertained the crowd with their original beats for the rest of the evening.
As more of a crowd started to fill up the Fox, next act Break Science took the stage. Although Break Science’s recorded sound seemed like an appropriate follower to Big Gigantic, with music a bit more fast-paced and drum-based, the act’s live set did not create the crowd energy and interaction that opener Big Gigantic did. Starting off strongly with high energy, Science’s drummer seemed to run out of steam midway through the set, throwing off the jam sessions that Science began playing. Despite the drummer’s slight lacking, Break Science’s keyboardist performed a consistent set, playing solidly throughout by pounding on his instrument relentlessly and helping to maintain the energy of the set.
Break Science’s somewhat inconsistent set served as a kind of break for the audience before DJ Rootz took the stage of the Fox at around 11:30 p.m. As the Fox became increasingly packed, Rootz played a solid set, stopping not even once to keep the crowd moving for a full two hours. Rootz’s music Monday night was best be described as energetic, playing electronica with long jam songs based strongly off of different hip-hop sounds.
Although all of Rootz’s set was entertaining, the best was saved for last: All DJs on stage played Sublime’s “Rivers of Babylon” before the show’s encore. Whether Rootz chose to play the Sublime hit as a tribute to the 4/20 festivities of the day or simply to create some crowd unity, the seeming unanimous appreciation for Sublime amongst college students did not matter. To say the crowd was “excited” to jam to Sublime would be an understatement.
As the audience began to slow down, a kind of Sublime sing-a-long ensued, an ideal ending for a day of unity in Boulder and a night of electronic a the Fox.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jamie Magyar at Jamie.magyar@Colorado.edu.
