I used to live in France, and I never thought it would be possible to approximate my European rave experience here in the U.S. I love trance and electronica, but lately I’ve felt like the oldest person at the party when I'm rocking out with people ten years younger than me. Not that there's anything wrong with this. It's just that I feel somewhat out of place. When I lived in Europe, it seemed like electronic music enthusiasts skewed a bit older and I felt like I fit in more.
But my sense of disconnect might not have anything to do with age at all. Maybe it’s more the fact that the electronic music scene has always been more about the scene than the music itself. Either way, I seem to have more fun nowadays listening to electronic music in the car than I do at a live show.
So it was with some trepidation that I headed down to the WaMu Theater in downtown Seattle last Saturday to see The Crystal Method play along with DJ Kaskade and The Prodigy. I’ve been a Crystal Method fan for some time now, and I think their new album, Divided By Night, is fantastic. Bright and stylistically varied, every track pulsates with a hypnotic sort of energy that reaches out and pulls me right into the heart of the music. And every track has that special something that makes Crystal Method music distinct, even amid all the (admittedly awesome) guest artists, like Matisyahu, Meiko and LMFAO. Rarely has an album, let alone an electronic music album, left me so entranced (pun intended!) on my very first listen.
Despite my love for the album, I didn't really know what to expect when I arrived at the show. I’d never seen The Crystal Method live, and I wasn’t sure how their music would translate from album to stage. The fact that I got to interview Crystal Method members Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland before the show helped allay my apprehensions. I sat down with Jordan and Kirkland in their dressing room and discovered that aside from being just about the nicest guys in the world—laid back, interesting, and fun conversationalists—they're also intensely dedicated to both their music and to musical innovation.
This dedication was evident from the moment they took the stage. After Kaskade laid down a solid set, the lasers dimmed, a hush rippled through the crowd, and Jordan and Kirkland materialized, bathed in the cool blue of the stage lights. They kicked off their set with my current favorite single of the moment, “Drown in the Now” featuring Matisyahu, and kept everyone dancing for well over an hour. Deftly sliding between laptops, synthesizers, and keyboards, Jordan and Kirkland somehow seemed to translate both their energy and passion to the crowd, keeping us on our feet with shifting rhythms and rolling waves of energy—lulling us into an almost hypnotic calm, then slowly building back up again.
Halfway through the set I looked around at all the intently dancing people and realized how much I was enjoying myself. There was a unique quality permeating the arena—a sense of ebullience—that you rarely find at a live electronic music show. This was what I’d been looking for—this elusive sense of feeling alive, in the moment, thinking only of the rhythm and the music and nothing else. I don't know quite how Jordan and Kirkland were able to produce this effect—maybe it's the fact that they're masters of their craft, or maybe it's their obvious passion for their work—but it made the quality of their music inherently joyful, and my experience at the show even more so.
I’ll be posting my interview with Jordan and Kirkland soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, check out our Divided By Night Listening Party and the surrealistic music video for “Drown in the Now” below.
--Bri Nguyen
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