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The Spectator
Block Party Receives Mixed Reviews
by Matt Nudell '11Arts & Entertainment Writer
Super Mash Bros and Rjd2 unleashed an ecstatic wave of techno/hip-hop fury to a large audience attending Hamilton College's first-ever Block Party this past Friday night in the Tolles Pavilion, Instead of hosting a traditional rock concert in place of May Day, CAB chose to spice things up by organizing a DJ dance party.
First off, the concert's setup had its ups and downs. The stage reminded one quite positively of a European Discothèque club atmosphere, in which strobe lights continuously oscillated and bombarded the audience with majestic, multi-colored hues. On the other hand, the front of the stage housed two gigantic speaker stacks that drowned the Annex in an overbearing wall of sound. Many audience members standing right beside the stage later complained that the sound levels were too low, whereas audience members standing by the stacks remarked that the speakers were obnoxiously loud. In addition, Rjd2's set was plagued by a power outage and a 15-minute set-up delay. Also, the event staff sadly ran out of glow sticks before the beginning of the show.
Despite the sound difficulties, Super Mash Bros' hour long set was spectacular, giving students without a doubt the best dance rave of the year. The DJ hip-hop duo, who dubbed themselves as "Girl Talk's Hot Cousin" on the website, adeptly combined popular hip-hop tunes with classic dance songs from the 80's and 90's. Halfway through their first song, a swarm of brave, dance-crazy students mounted the stage to accompany the Mash Bros. The stage would eventually fill up to its maximum capacity with students. Miraculously, the stage did not collapse, as it infamously did during Girl Talk's concert at Colgate last year. The crowd later cheered on the Super Mash Bros to perform two small encores. During Rjd2's set, the crowd even shouted, but in vain, for another Super Mash Bros encore. Remarkably, these two 19-year old college kids, Dick Fink and Nicolas Fenmore (Super Mash Bros), delivered their stellar performance with the aid of just two Mac Pro computers.
Sadly, the show went downhill after the Super Mash Bros exited the stage. A lot of the audience left during the lengthy set change. More importantly, Rjd2's subtle, mellow hip-hop songs appeared to be too much of an awkward transition from Super Mash Bro's danceable tunes. While Rjd2's hip-hop experimentation was innovative, his set did not feature the fast dance music the audience so desired. Nonetheless, Rjd2 gave memorable live renditions of his hit singles "Since '76," "The Horror," "Since We Last Spoke," and "Ghostwriter." Moreover, the projector screen, which constantly flashed a grab bag of random images, added unnecessary visual chaos and confusion to the already out-of-place set. Even so, it was cool to see Rjd2 master his five turntables via a camera feed that was relayed onto the projector screen.
Overall, to call CAB's Block Party a success would be partially true. The concert's opening act, Super Mash Bros, truly stole the show with an energetic, perfectly linked set of hip-hop tunes. At the same time, Block Party's headliner failed to match the previous set's vibrant euphoria. As a result, Block Party became Bloc Party, in which May Day's Iron Curtain fell into an electronic abyss.