Maud Deitch

You know how sometimes when you’re thinking back to a particularly ridiculous dream you’ve had, you have to step back for a moment and acknowledge how completely hilarious your subconscious is? Well, I had one of those moments at The Echoplex on Saturday night. I had never heard of the show’s opening band, Totally Michael, and so when a skinny kid, hardly any wider than his black, be-stickered guitar, took the stage, I had no idea what to expect. A sing along version of The Village People’s “YMCA” later, and I still had no idea what I was in for.

Totally Michael’s ridiculous, completely juvenile set seemed to be constantly toeing the line between arch satire and Blink-182 inspired idiocy, and I found myself looking around in disbelief to try and guage from other’s faces how I was supposed to be feeling about the show. Performance is about 25% content though, and if the remaining 75% is energy, Totally Michael was a complete success. Jumping around the stage like a squirrel with ADHD, Michael Dunlap was a sight to see, and I have to give him credit—he most certainly got me excited for what the rest of the night had in store.

From there, the tone was set for an outlandish, maybe even out of control, evening. The crowd—which was a mixture of teenagers (the show was 18+) in their finest sequined gear and older folks exhibiting various states of total inebriation—was all fist pumping energy as DJ Killed By Synth took the stage. She spun an energetic set of crowd pleasers, even managing to make “We Are Your Friends” seem as jammy as it did the first time around.

The crowd was nice and warmed up, therefore, when Flosstradamus took the stage. It felt, actually, more like a festival show than a Saturday night at the Echoplex. The crowd surged forward and danced the shit out of the seemingly endless (in a good way) set, getting dirty, like high school dance dirty, to mixes of such classics as “Get Low,” made famous by Lil’ John and the Eastside Boyz. Bumping and grinding against the metal barriers set up to control the madness, the crowd screamed enthusiastic at all the right places, got down as hard as they could, and generally seemed to be having a crazily good time.

When Kid Sister took the stage, you would’ve thought she was The Beatles come back for a surprise reunion. I fought my way through the glinting, sweaty sea to try and get a better look at what was happening on stage, and thought for a second I would be spat back out again. When a pretty young reveler saw me desperately trying to get a good angle for a photo, she pushed me forward, saying, “Take pictures, take pictures! Show everyone how good she is!” Kid Sister, the nom de plume of Chicago native Melisa Young, was resplendent with her long black hair streaked pink, flanked by two back up dancers in black leotards and silver masks. Clearly, I hadn’t gotten the memo about the sequins, because, like much of her insanely excited fan base, Young was decked out in black sequined leggings, making her legs look like they were made of ink, and only making her black leather jacket look tougher.

Performing tracks off her soon to drop record Ultraviolet, Young’s performance was as hard and tough as seems necessary for a female MC trying to make it in a not particularly lady-friendly hip hop world. The tracks combine club friendly, bouncy electro beats and relatively benign, although well delivered, lyrics. Perfect tracks for playing in your first car with the windows rolled down, which was probably exactly what her fans would do on their way home from the show. Maintaining the high energy of the beginning of the night would be a challenge, I thought, but Young’s set worked perfectly, bringing the crowd to their peak of hormonal dancing frenzy and leaving everyone excited when it was over.

Watching the crowd stream out of the club was like watching an advertisement for a good night. Though some were definitely a little too drunk, some sleepy, and some wondering loudly where their cell phones/cameras/boyfriends or girlfriends had gone, everyone was all smiles, which, I think, is a sign that all involved did their jobs extraordinarily well.

—Maud Deitch