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Words by: Chris Clark | Images by: Kelsey Winterkorn
Pretty Lights/Eliot Lipp :: 04.15.10 :: Mezzanine :: San Francisco, CA
Maybe nowhere in music today is the buzz surrounding an artist humming louder than for Pretty Lights. Just two years ago, very few outside of Colorado's burgeoning electronic scene had heard of the duo featuring producer extraordinaire Derek Vincent Smith and live drummer Cory Eberhard, and now Pretty Lights is one of the hottest commodities on the jam-tronica music scene. Pretty Lights has exploded onto the national music stage, performing to sold out crowds everywhere, and this looks to be only the beginning. Fresh off a sold out North American tour, the duo's first trip over to the U.K. and Europe, sets at Coachella, Red Rocks and a barrage of other choice festival slots, Pretty Lights seems poised for only bigger and bigger things.
Making a quick stop at Mezzanine before their Coachella performance, Pretty Lights arrived at yet another sold out club. Before Smith and Eberhard would hit the stage, capable opener Eliot Lipp commenced the festivities, performing an hour set of his seductively slick slaw of breaks, hip hop and house - a concoction for both auditory pleasure and intelligent inquisition. Lipp's masterful mélange of 1970's style funk and old school hip hop flavor combines two of the most head-bobbing sounds of the recent past and produces something futuristic. Brooklyn beats blossom into L.A. soundscapes, a tastefully transposed trendiness so smooth even the heaviest of feet began to move. As his set began to ascend from lukewarm to the boiling point, Lipp dropped into a remixed rendition of Rihanna's "Rude Boy," driving Mezzanine to a knee-buckling frenzy as his big bass coupled with Rihanna's cry of "Come on, rude boy, boy/ Can you get it up?"
Where to begin with Pretty Lights? I've been to Mezzanine countless times over the last year and a half, and I have to say this Thursday night was exponentially louder and more enthusiastic than any show I can remember. Pretty Lights sold the show out well in advance, and it was announced last week that they would be headlining the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 7. So, feeling confident and pumped, this set was all fire. That's the thing with Pretty Lights; they only have one tempo, full speed ahead. Whereas most DJs or bands perform sets with various peaks and valleys, starts and stops, Pretty Lights go from 0-60 in a few seconds and never look back. Performing a monster, close to three hour set, Smith and Eberhard blew the walls off the club with a fierce, pure, electro dance party.
Pretty Lights seems to have figured out their formula - a hard-driven, well-conceived concoction of high energy, easily accessible and seamlessly performed compositions that draw upon the best parts of groups like Daft Punk and Justice, combined with a live drummer for the jam fans to generate some the most well executed sonic explosions you'll find. Songs like "Sunday School," with its prime Biggie sample of "Fuck 'em/ I didn't want to go to heaven anyway," and "Can't Stop Me Now" highlighted a sweat-soaked set of hard, funky electro beats.
After more than 500,000 downloads of their albums and sold out shows coast to coast, Pretty Lights is blowing away all expectations. There wasn't one dull song, one "bathroom break" moment. On this night, there were a thousand or so people dancing their asses off to one of the best party acts around. Pretty Lights has come a very long way in just two year's time. Now the question arises, where do they go now?
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