Deadmau5 at Soldier Field

By Jake Guidry in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 6, 2010 7:00PM

One thing often true of the different types of dance music is that its respective crowds don't converge much. House heads go to house shows, electro banger fiends mosh at electro banger clubs, and dubsteppers self-induce whiplash at dubstep warehouse parties. For the most part, there isn't much intermingling between these or any of the scenes of electronic dance music. But then one might go to a show, say Coachella or Lollapalooza, and be in awe that all of these sects have combined into one little melting pot of glowsticks, gelled blowouts, tie dye, skinny jeans and wayfarers. Such was the case for Friday's Deadmau5 show at Soldier Field's Stadium Green, proof positive that his draw reaches beyond scenes. And after that show was over, us in our sweat-drenched t-shirts with our dilated pupils, we knew exactly why.

For the tour, Deadmau5 took a page from Daft Punk's book and focused as much on the visual aspect of his show as he did the music. However, what may surprise many people is that his light show was much better than the high-profile robots'. Armed with an LED mouse head (that was unfortunately mostly non-functional for the show), LED light poles, LED screens and a chopped-in-half LED cube that resembled a crash-landed alien spaceship, Deadmau5 graced the stage with a massive amount of artillery. He sucked in the entire crowd with a light show that we are more than willing to say is the best we've ever seen. This, of course, in addition to the fact that he commanded the crowd beautifully with a blend of build-and-release mixing that lasted for a full 90-minutes. Although the crowd was jam-packed and at times unruly, Deadmau5 made us forget all of that with a dance show by which all other dance shows should be judged.