Monday night I walked to the Orpheum Theater alone in the frigid cold and stood in line with a bunch of white people to see Skrillex, King of the Wub Wubs. I waited silently, reveling in my sobriety as guys with pupils the size of dimes stood around me, high fiving each other and asking other people in line how fucking pumped they were.
I got inside the theater and posted up near the bar area. As opener Valentino Kahn jammed onstage, looking very excited to be there, a guy walked past me with a dead look on his face as he repeated, “Molly… molly… molly.” A man of few words.
Bro Safari jumped onstage immediately after Valentino Kahn.
“What’s up, Madison?” he shouted, before launching into a set of mid-range-heavy bangers, punctuated by excessive uses of the “Damn son, where’d you find this?” soundbite. As his set went on, dudes in bro tanks, diffusion glasses and pink hats began toppling into me left and right, and I understood the “bro” part of Bro Safari’s name. As the Orpheum grew more packed, everyone around me grew sweatier, and I began to regret wearing wool socks. I then understood the “safari” part of Bro Safari’s name. The Orpheum had turned into a certified “bro safari,” and I was in the middle of it, clinging to my coat like I would a newborn child.
Midway through Bro Safari, a guy appeared in front of me, sporting a sailor hat and a large beard. He seemed like a pretty chill dude and given my oppressive loneliness, anyone who made even a second of eye contact with me was immediately a friend.
“I like your hat,” I said to him.
“Thanks, dude,” he said back.
From there on out, Sailor Hat was my concert buddy. We only spoke one more time and occasionally made eye contact during the more intense bass drops. He was feelin’ it and his excitement made me excited. With Sailor Hat standing next to me, the bro safari was a little less lonely.
Dudes wearing Guy Fawkes masks pushed past me as Skrillex’s arrival onstage grew nigh. Two sweaty high school-aged douchebags did the same. I looked over and saw one of them put a pacifier in his mouth. He then pulled a bandana over his face. I couldn’t help but think of the fact that it was a Monday.
As Skrillex’s equipment was set up, Bob Marley played over the speakers. I stood silently by myself, bobbing my head to the beat as others around me socialized.
“I need to pee so bad,” Sailor Hat said to his friends. “Don’t want to lose my spot though. Mental power, mental power.” Fight the power, Sailor Hat, I thought as I said nothing.
Finally, the lights went down, and a five minute countdown appeared on the screen behind Skrillex’s equipment. People pulled out their iPhones and began filming the entire thing.
“That’s gonna be a long movie,” I said to Sailor Hat, who was filming the countdown in its entirety.
“I’m gonna make these fuckers watch all of this,” he said.
Click here to watch the last 25 seconds of the countdown, which I also filmed.
With 10 seconds left, Skrillex jumped onstage. The crowd went wild and the wub wubs hit. For about an hour and a half, they never let up. It was a brostep kerfuffle and for a crowd that thrives off bass drops and abrasive, mid-range sounds, it was heaven.
Click here to watch my face as I watch Skrillex.
I was first exposed to Skrillex my freshman year of college, when I heard “Cinema (Skrillex Remix)” nearly 15 times a day in my dorm for several weeks. I loved these newfound brostep sounds, but I, like many other people, grew tired of these sounds after a couple of months. While Skrillex is still one of the biggest names in the game, his glory days seem to be etched into those months when brostep was the biggest thing in music. Now it’s hard for it not to be seen as inevitable self-parody by many, but this doesn’t mean the music isn’t loved by millions of people. The sold-out Orpheum crowd proved that Monday. The show itself was, well, a bit of a sensory overload.
Images of asteroids, robots and Skrillex fans were projected on the screen behind him. Red and gray lasers jutted across the theater. Lights shone on a disco ball, creating ever-rotating beams of light that drenched the theater in their majestic glory. A collection of balloons fell upon the audience at one point, but after a few minutes they were gone, probably stuck between the seats in the back of the theater. A girl on the balcony held a neon green sign that said, “IS THIS REAL LIFE?” I was asking myself the same question.
After a while, Sailor Hat drifted off into the ever-swaying crowd. I remained in the second row, alone again. Some guy elbowed me in the face, which was fun. After a while I just grew exhausted, because I had gotten four hours of sleep the night before and because nearly two hours of Skrillex is simultaneously the most stimulating and the most exhausting thing in the world. I needed sleep.
Around 12:30 a.m., Skrillex played his last song. Before the song began, he looked at the crowd, smiled and said, “You guys fucking rage on a Monday night. I love it.”
I’m happy my lonesomeness could have contributed to it all. I walked home immediately afterwards and passed out.
