Disclosure Took Us To The Wild Side
By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 13, 2014 3:00PM
Following last week's tribute to the godfather of House music Frankie Knuckles, UK act Disclosure came to town Wednesday to light up the Lincoln Park Zoo and prove that the new generation of drum and bass-heavy dance music is alive and well.
The duo's popularity has grown exponentially since the release of its debut album Settle last year and has helped launch careers like collaborator Sam Smith's. Still, last night's WILDLIFE tour stop was a more intimate performance than expected. The Grammy-nominated brothers of Disclosure (Guy and Howard Lawrence) took the stage just after the sun set following sets from hand-picked openers George Fitzgerald, Green Velvet and Joey Bada$$. While we applauded an appearance by the Chicago House legend, rapper Joey Bada$$ felt out of place on the bill both in his musical style and in the context of the kiddie-friendly Lincoln Park Zoo. "Fuck the police" not being a phrase you hear in earnest often around the neighborhood.
Regardless, Disclosure was the star of the show. Their sound can lend towards either a more traditional DJ set or a live instrumentation performance. If you can, we recommend you catch Disclosure live, which is how they played last night.
Keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, electric drum pads, bass guitar and lots of cow bell. Disclosure was not short on selection when it came time to recreate their tracks last night. As fog billowed out into the crowd and the brothers Lawrence took the stage, the opening notes of "F For You" began to waft out through the zoo's pavilion. Things kicked up a notch from there as they launched into the aggressively fun "When A Fire Starts To Burn." After nearly ninety minutes of deeply rhythmic jamming, thing wrapped up, predictably, with a warm sing-a-long to the best pop song of the past two years (sorry, Lorde), the aforementioned Smith collaboration "Latch."
Seeing as it was a weeknight, we were unable to follow Disclosure to their after party at The Mid (a DJ set with opener Derrick Carter) but we're sure the House party raged on.