The Winter White Tour, presented by MASS EDMC and NV Concepts, stormed its way through America’s Northeast during the month of February, making eight stops over four weeks. The tour began in Albany, NY then hopped through to Syracuse (NY), Durham (NH), Trenton (NJ), Worcester (MA), Springfield (MA), Providence (RI), and finally Portland (ME). The most amazing part is the pool of talent the guys and girls at MASS EDMC & NV Concepts were able to bring out, including some of the biggest names in electronic dance music: David Guetta, Dada Life, R3hab, Alesso, Hardwell, Bingo Players, Dillon Francis, and Chris Lake. Regional talent included local favorites Bamboora and Joe Bermudez.
MMIBTY had our crew out for the Worcester and Providence legs of the tour. Let’s just say it was an insanely awesome party! Click through to hear more, see some pictures, and watch some bouncing bananas (you’ll see what I mean).
The Winter White Tour took a page out of some of the biggest parties in the world by creating an all-white theme (I’m looking at events such as Europe’s Sensation White events [rumored to be coming to America] and Montreal’s Bal en Blanc) – but it was very fitting considering the bitter snowy cold of the Northeast U.S.
Clad in a white t-shirt with my crew, I arrived to Worcester’s Palladium just after 10pm on Saturday the 18th. Having gone through a couple setbacks in the night already, this caused us to miss the sets of Joe Bermudez and 3LAU. I’ll admit I wasn’t that bummed – the main goal of my night was to catch Chris Lake (get this dude some more likes!!) for the first time and to catch an entire Hardwell set for the first time (I had only caught a few songs during his Electric Zoo 2011 set). Luckily Chris Lake had only played a couple songs by the time we stepped inside.
My first reaction was that the show was VERY under capacity. The Palladium is two levels high – the balcony is all seats and the lower level features seating in the back with an open pit area up front. I had been there for Skrillex and that was a sold out show, so by comparison I could tell there were some tickets remaining at the box office. The show was announced relatively late compared to the other stops and despite a hard push from the promoters it probably didn’t live up to their ticket sales expectations.
Regardless – it was time to party. As I listened to Chris Lake’s AWESOME set, filled with a lot of Electro-House songs I didn’t recognize, I realized that a lot of people in the crowd didn’t get the memo that the theme was WHITE. I thought that took a little away from the atmosphere, but did I mention Chris Lake was killing it? He played a flawless DJ set that, as I said, was mostly big room House and Electro-House, which to be honest wasn’t what I was expecting. I vaguely remember some Tommy Trash and Lake’s original track “Sundown” (which I love). After Lake’s set I was fortunate enough to meet him (thanks to my friendship with one of the go-go dancers). He was a real humble man, down to earth, and actually pretty funny. I tried not to ruin his game while he talked with a cutie lady friend, but thanked him for his time and moved on…. bringing me to Hardwell’s set.
Hardwell began his set with some pretty typical crowd pleasures such as Alesso & Sebastian Ingrosso’s “The Calling” that, to be honest, bored me a little bit. I wasn’t there to hear songs every DJ in the world was playing. But fear not! This was merely a safe call to ease the crowd into a more typical Hardwell set (which really included everything). He played a lot of good big room House, songs like the Bingo Players’ “Rattle” and Diplo & Oliver Twizt’s “Go (PeaceTreaty Remix)”. Other notable tracks included one by Deadmau5 and one of my new favorite bootlegs: “Niggas Satisfaction in Paris (Chuckie Pass That Dutch Bootleg)”. Then Hardwell went into some Moombahton (Lazerdisk Party Sex’s remix of Diplo’s “Horsey” if I remember correctly), and finally some Dubstep to close out the night – making sure to include Bamboora’s mash-up of “Levels” (mashing up the Hardwell bootleg and Skrillex’s remix). Overall it was a great night, Hardwell didn’t stop smiling, and I’m glad I had the chance to go!
Now on to our good friend Ryan Rimmer, aka Silascopathic (do us a favor and check out his SoundCloud for his awesome original tracks and remixes) for his take on the Providence stop:
I had been waiting to see Dada Life ever since I was introduced to them a year ago. The opportunity to see them finally came to New England and without hesitation, tickets were purchased and the hotel was booked. Now I’m going to date myself, but I hadn’t been to Lupo’s since they were attached to the Met cafe on Westminster Ave. in the late 90s. Lupo’s current location is beautiful; a great venue to host an event as crazy as this. I got there right as Hardwell was about to go on. We got up front, stage right, and were surrounded by kids in all white with glow paint covering their faces, guys in banana suits with 3D sunglasses on, girls with bright colored tutus waving glow sticks. There were at least three dancing yetis on stage throwing white beach balls out in to the crowd too. All I can say is holy shit! From then on there wasn’t a time where a smile was not on my face.
I had never heard Hardwell and only knew that he was in his early 20s. Can we say talented?! This kid blows the doors out of any DJ I have ever seen. He controlled the room. Never have I seen such comfort and pleasure displayed from a DJ using CDJs. He took the room by storm and had us dancing and jumping around. The craziest thing to experience was Hardwell taking us from a banger tune into Moombahton and back into House again – I was geeking out. He even broke into a remix of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. This really got the night off to a great start for us!
Finally after 4 ‘gansett tall boys, Dada Life walks out on stage clad in white with black bow ties and they kicked out the epic mother fucker! Smoke shoots into the crowd and a huge confetti canon fires off. The lights are going bonkers and Stefan and Olle are jumping up and down and I swear they were laughing the entire time. They went through their set playing all their tunes and throwing in remixes like “Cotton Eyed Joe” (Turbulence Mash-Up) and “Haters Gonna Hate”. Throughout the entire night all we ever saw was beach balls floating about the crowd, but then, as if we would give up hope, we hear a wolfs howl and with a blast of confetti and a blink of an eye there were giant inflatable bananas and champagne bottles bouncing around the crowd while their remix of big bad wolf kept everyone bouncing (see video). Dada ended off the night with an awesome clip of “Holla Back Girl” (if you can’t guess the part, I’m not telling you) but let’s just say this: that shit was b-a-n-a-n-a-s! Finally they break into my favorite, “White Noise/Red Meat” and I felt as if Lupo’s exploded all over again. They kicked out the epic mother fucker one last time and then just like that it was over. We were all shuffled out into the streets of Providence only to swarm the local 7-11’s and begin the rest of the night. This goes up there with some of my favorite shows of all time. If you ever get a chance to see either Hardwell or Dada Life, do it!