Photo Credits: Pretty Lights Music
This review is certainly belated but such is life sometimes as I just have not been able to find the time to sit down and properly verbalize the almost indescribable experience that was Pretty Lights @ Red Rocks.
Now to set the scene…
Everything started with a beautiful sunny afternoon of hanging out with friends and tailgating in the parking lot and absorbing the gorgeous scenery all around. As one of the first events of the summer where I was not on picture duty – lugging around a camera and backpack full of gear, I decided to cut loose a little and partake in some libations and really enjoy the night. Unfortunately the excitement led to some overeagerness, and that combined with some direct sun led to a pretty fuzzy recollection of most of the opening acts. As a result my summary for these gentlemen will be quite brief.
Big KRIT got things going after Gramatik with some pretty hard southern rhymes that the crowd seemed to enjoy quite a lot. It wasn’t really my cup of tea but KRIT’s energy and general enjoyment for what he does combined with the crowds excitement set a good tone for things to come. Michael Menert followed with a very similar set to that of Gramatik and then Skream was handed the reigns for the premier opening position. He played a very intense set laden with hard Dubstep, complete with some personal favorites like the Skrillex remix of Benny Benassi’s ‘Cinema’. He brought the energy to a peak when he closed his set with a pretty clean play of ‘Rage – Killing in the Name Of’ that really primed everyone for the coming audiovisual journey led by Colorado’s own Derek Smith aka Pretty Lights.
This was my first live dose of PL, and prior to Saturday my point of view was that it was not much more than and admirably unique blend of rock, soulful funk, hip hop and dubstep that was perfect for a summer afternoon drinking beer on the beach. But as I quickly found out it is much more than that. Its about the total audiovisual experience that takes everyone to very similar yet always different places of pure personal bliss. PL set things off with an ode to the early days with ‘Hot Like Sauce’ and gave the crowd their first full dose of his brand new lighting setup that was the stuff dreams area made of.
From start to finish the lights never repeated the same movements and dazzled us all with an almost overwhelming combination of a 3D LED, lasers of every size shape and color, smoke and a some truly impressive multicolor lights. Im rambling here I know, but words simply do not do it justice and I must note that it was one of the top two light shows I have ever seen. It made the music exponentially better as the two danced together all night long and relentlessly prompted me to get things moving no matter how much I wanted to sit down to rest.
Some notable tunes that PL dropped throughout the visual bombardment included ‘More Important Than Michael Jordan’, ‘All of the lights’ and his remix of ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ was particularly well suited to the groovy low and slow feel for the night. When he threw in his sick mix of Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ things got even more ambient and chill, making me think that it was probably the closest thing to a modern day ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ moment anyone could possible have (Hands on head material). Mixed in with the more ambient classics was a nice sampling of PL releases to come which really displayed his forward progression to harder and more glitchy dubstep sounds.
Being primarily a fan of electronic music with higher BPM’s, energetic basslines and big drops I did occasionally yearn for him to really bang it out so to speak. Gladly he didn’t as he stuck to a very consistent and flowing tempo of music till the very end that really came together perfectly. As the night began to wind down and he cut into ‘Finally Moving’ (a gorgeous track that samples the same vocals as Avicii’s ‘Le7els’) the entranced crowd came together to sing the lyrics in unison under a full moon, a truly amazing moment. Typically one would expect a show of this magnitude to end on an absolute high note but he really nailed it with such a unconventional and melodic ending.
In closing I am going to strongly urge all of you SBBumper’s out there to go see PL because it is a serious ‘game changing’ experience so to speak. Even if his music isn’t your ideal sound, give it a chance and see it live because you will be singing a vastly different tune as you leave the event. Furthermore, if you can make it to next summers gig at Red Rocks then make it happen because the combination of the stunning environment, great people, amazing energy and the one of a kind audio-viosual experience all bundled together is unforgettable.
Big thanks to Krystle Blackburn from Pretty Lights Music for helping out with the press tickets and I have to shout out the great crew of people I got to enjoy the night with! Can’t wait to do it again next summer (hopefully with my camera)!!
PS: Do yourself a favor and watch the videos below. Seriously.
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VIDEO
‘Unreleased’
‘Hot Like Sauce’
‘Finally Moving’
‘All of the Lights’
- SHARING IS SEXY
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