W♥M (Archive): Max Styler

SIMshows Presents: Steve Aoki

Tour Dates

02/27/2018 Tulsa, OK Brady Theater
02/28/2018 Austin, TX Stubb's Bar-B-Q
03/01/2018 Dallas, TX The Bomb Factory
03/02/2018 Houston, TX Revention Music Center
03/03/2018 Las Vegas, NV Hakkasan
03/04/2018 El Paso, TX El Paso County Coliseum
03/05/2018 Albuquerque, NM Historic El Rey Theater
03/06/2018 Las Vegas, NV Omnia Nightclub
03/07/2018 Tucson, AZ Rialto Theatre
03/10/2018 San Francisco, CA Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
03/13/2018 South Padre Island, TX "Beach Bash Music Fest"
03/14/2018 Seattle, WA Showbox SoDo
03/16/2018 Edmonton, AB "Soundwave"
03/17/2018 Las Vegas, NV Jewel Nightclub
03/22/2018 Las Vegas, NV Hakkasan
03/26/2018 Las Vegas, NV Jewel Nightclub
07/20/2018 Boom, Belgium "Tomorrowland Festival"
07/21/2018 Kleve, Germany "Parookaville"
07/29/2018 Boom, Belgium "Tomorrowland Festival"

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Steve Aoki

Steve Aoki is currently partying across America with his Aokify America Tour, recently selling out his appearance at Epic in Minneapolis last Saturday, November 9th …

When the Kolony Tour comes to town, only mayhem can ensue, and filmed ‘Mayhem’ was what it was—

Steve Aoki, the renown DJ /EDM musician known for his exceptional live experiences, brought the blissful insanity of his Kolony Tour to a sold-out crowd at the Armory in Minneapolis, heating up the cavernous building inside, as over a half foot of snow outside, was falling.

The tour is in celebration of last summer’s Kolony (Ultra/Dim Mak Records) and Aoki brought friends Desiigner, Quintino, Bad Royale, Max Styler, and Bok Nero along, to make it into a six-hour live extravaganza. Additionally, a portion of ticket sales were given to the DJ’s own Aoki Foundation, which supports organizations in brain science with specific focus on regenerative medicine , so the party was also partially for a good cause.

After opening DJ sets by Max Styler and trio Bad Royale, things really kicked into overdrive with an hour-long set from Dutch DJ/Producer Quintino, who’s released a bevy of singles and a series of Go Harder EPs (on Spinnin’ Records) over the last several years.

Quintino successfully worked up the capacity crowd into a collective frenzy, many waving a multi-color changing light stick in the air as they danced about the room, as the DJ built tempo up successfully before dropping the beats and watching the crowd go crazy each time, in tandem. The mix with songs like ‘Good Vibes’, ‘Lights Out’ and of course, ‘Go Harder’ perfectly set the stage for the remainder of the evening.

After a quick set change and a rumbling bass intro, twenty-year old Brooklyn hip-hop artist Desiigner stormed the stage for a relatively short thirty-minute set, but made the most of his time, climbing on his bodyguard’s shoulders, spraying the crowd with huge water guns, and rarely keeping still.

Desiigner ended his set with biggest hit, ‘Panda’, in the middle of the packed general admission floor so he could celebrate the song with a few of his biggest fans, dressed in panda costumes for the occasion.

While the venue’s VIP second level seemed somewhat reserved, the party was clearly on the floor where fans young and old, were determined to forget the bad weather outside and enjoy the festivities and warmth inside, before having to face nature for their journey home. The venue itself continues to impress with orderly and secure lines to get inside and a well-mixed sound that reached clearly throughout, even to the furthest corners in the back.

Although his two hour-long headlining set featured a lot of recent music including several from the trap/hip-hop leaning new record, Steve Aoki’s performance also seemed a little more back-to-basics and elemental in its nature, the focus more on the mix being spun and connecting directly with the crowd, versus visual distractions that might take the focus away.

Gone were the inflatable rafts and transforming robot people we saw previously, with the stage hosting a central DJ booth whose lighted front resembled the fanged mouth from the album cover, underneath two lit X’s, which made up the eyes. Lighted tower columns were moved into place on both sides mid-set, a huge screen backdrop showed videos, montages, and the crowd itself at times, as Aoki had brought his own cameraman to document the event, even taking out his own phone (during ‘Plur Genocide’) to livestream a portion to his online fans.

Until you hear dozens of them mixed back-to-back, it’s hard to remember truly how many collaborations Aoki has had, in just the last decade with an early set highlight showcasing his collaboration with Linkin Park on ‘A Light that Never Comes’ with the late Chester Bennington shown singing on-screen as Aoki mixed.

More recent collaborations including those with Migos, Lil Yachty, Gucci Mane, and Lil Uzi Vert from the newest record, and those with One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson, Korean group BTS and Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui all made it into the mix, often with accompanying music videos playing behind him.

Aoki didn’t shy away from the classics either, working in the riffs and snippets from AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’, Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, the latter of which showed a digitally-altered movie clip of Aoki holding onto himself at the ship’s bow, in that classic scene from Titanic.

Light tubes bobbed in the air and the floor quaked from group jumping during the Aoki mix of Macklemore and Lewis’ ‘Can’t Hold Us’ and Latin music fans went wild for ‘Azukita’, a recent collaboration with Daddy Yankee, Play-N-Skillz, and Elvis Crespo.

On-stage cameras rolled as the crowd sang along to ‘How Else’, Aoki’s collaboration with Rich the Kid and ILoveMakonnen and Quintino returned to the stage to join Aoki on their joint single, ‘Mayhem’, filming a portion of the song’s video as those with homemade ‘Mayhem’ signs were invited on stage to dance along.

Desiigner re-emerged to help out on ‘Mic Drop’ getting the crowd even more fired up and dessert was saved until almost the end, as staff came out with a dozen full sheet frosted cakes as ‘Cake Face’ was cued up . The DJ lept out onto the catwalk looking and pointing, as rabid fans held signs on high and pleaded with Aoki to get “caked”, a badge of honor by having cake all over you by the show’s end.

‘I Love You When You Cry’, Aoki’s 2015 collaboration with Moxie would follow and things circled back to Linkin Park with ‘One More Light’ (Chester Forever remix) to end the main set amidst cheers and shouts as the venue neared its late curfew time, with fans demanding just a little more.

Steve Aoki shows absolutely no signs of slowing down…

Aoki and the opening acts returned to the stage, taking bows, and cueing up the appropriately-titled, ‘What We Started’, done originally with Don Diablo, Lush & Simon, and BullySongs with its lyric, “This is what we started, It's everything that we ever wanted, they won't hold us back”.

As North America’s highest grossing dance artist/DJ, Steve Aoki shows absolutely no signs of slowing down and this eclectic dance-driven, party-loving colony (…make that Kolony) that he’s cultivated, is only getting larger and larger.