About ten days ago I wrote an article previewing Mat Zo’s show at Royale Boston in support of his album Damage Control. About three months ago I had the pleasure of witnessing Zo perform at Electric Zoo Festival and I wrote about that experience here. With both scenarios, I already knew what to expect, but I was also expecting the unexpected. The “unexpected” wasn’t whether or not I expected Mat Zo to crush it, it was more in regards to how he was going to crush it. To some extent a Mat Zo fan will probably accurately predict certain songs to be played, especially at a club or festival, but more often than not we’re treated to an array of sub-genres, Mat Zo original mash-ups (yeah, that’s a thing), and all around dance floor destroyers. On a given night Zo will play everything from Drum n Bass to Electro-House to Trap to Trance/Progressive and everything else. This is exactly what happened this past Thursday at Boston’s Royale Nightclub.
As expected, we heard several songs from Zo’s album Damage Control, like “Easy” (including the Botnek remix), the incredible “Caller ID”, “Pyramid Scheme“, and the Ilan Bluestone remix of “Lucid Dreams” which has turned into a huge hit thanks to its harder-hitting remodeling. We also heard one of my favorite Mat Zo songs of all time: “Bipolar“. Aside from having the pleasure of hearing awesome Zo tracks, the crowd was treated to absolutely flawless mixing (seriously, he doesn’t make mistakes behind the decks) and an array of fantastic tunes from all ends of the Dance Music world. Don’t believe me? The second song Zo played was the Loudpvck remix of Jackal’s “Shakedown”. Other highlights included Mat Zo’s mashup of Pryda’s “Layers” with Dajae’s “Everyday My Life” and Mat Zo’s mashup of Steve Aoki & Chris Lake’s “Boneless” with Deadmau5’s “Strobe”. According to my Shazaam app Zo also played the fantastic “Through the Night” by Botnek which made the crowd go insane.
In conclusion, go see Mat Zo live. That is all.