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Review: Avicii at Beta in Waterloo
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| DJ_Elyot |
Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack what a good night.
More serious review will be forthcoming, but it's safe to say that Avicii was quite possibly the best house music show I've ever been to. |
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| DJ_Elyot |
Full review:
I almost bailed on Avicii because I awoke this morning with a terrible cold and a fever. I spent all day in bed and nursed myself with soup and acetaminophen. By 9pm, I decided that I was feeling sufficiently well that going to Avicii would be a better decision than missing out.
Had the event been in Toronto, I almost certainly would have bailed; fortunately, Beta is within walking distance of where I live.
Got there just after 10pm and there was already quite a queue forming outside. They started letting people in right after I got in line. The doormen were checking people's wallets for drugs; somehow they managed to not find the TYLENOL I sneaked in. ^_^
A nontrivial portion of the crowd had pre-drunk. They weren't violent or pushy, though; it was the usual, young and jovial Beta vibe, which I very much like. During Avicii's set, there was a lot of pressure to be near the front (which I prefer at Beta for the acoustics) and there were a lot of people trying to worm their way through the crowd, which was distracting at times. A 4-corner speaker setup would really improve this by providing an acoustically good place to dance that wasn't right at the front.
It was surprisingly chilly at beta and they never got around to using their CO2 (they never needed to). This was mostly a good thing. The back of the club was very damp due to condensation. It was actually a decent spot to dance and listen to the tunes because the crowd was sparser and the acoustics are noticeably better than those in the middle of the dancefloor (once you walk up the 3 steps near the coat check, you have a more direct line-of-sight to the tweeters and mids and aren't having them attenuated by the heads and hands of those in front of you). Beta would be advised to raise its speakers a bit higher (like Guv's) if they want to stick with the two huge stacks in front.
The best spot acoustically is still at the corner of the bar near the left speaker (the right hand side seems to rattle more for some reason). The volumes were much better than at Emery; I still kept my earplugs in all night, but the mids weren't drowned out by resonance caused by excessive bass.
A lot of people seemed to decide not to wear coats (perhaps they'd heard about the coat check fiasco). Still, the coat check seemed to fill up very quickly and people were dumping coats in the corner and behind the bar. I pretty much got there early specifically to secure a spot in coat check, and did so. The line toward coat check was being directed backwards toward the entrance and clogged up the hallway near the men's washroom, making it completely impossible to access. This pissed me off because I was still feeling somewhat stuffy and really needed to blow my nose. *rage*
When I finally got into the washroom, there were no paper towels left and the stalls were all occupied, so I *couldn't* blow my nose. *rage*
Sometime later, I went back to the washroom and finally the paper towels had been replenished. At long last, I was able to blow my nose. I did so, and out came a huge amount of blood, which led to the most epic nightclub nosebleed I'd ever experienced. I suppose such a thing occurred simply because I was sick; people had asked me if I got punched or something. I spent most of Mark Oliver's set with paper towels stuffed up my nose, and spent the rest of the night with speckles of blood all over my shirt. I hope nobody noticed.
The experience alerted me to the fact that the lighting in Beta's male washroom is REALLY ty. When you're at the sink in front of the mirror, all of the lights are behind you, causing you to be in your own shadow; consequently you're completely unable to see your face.
The lasers and strobes were working well. Some of the mirrors seemed to be positioned wrong and were getting slightly missed by the laser. The hole in the corner where the laser shines through needs to be cut bigger if the rotation effect is to work properly. The LEDs could use some better programming. Particularly annoying to me is THIS, which is just downright ugly IMO:
From a design standpoint, slicing a balanced image or logo vertically and horizontally displacing the pieces is almost always going to look bad. You'd be better off to preserve the original shape and sizing of the image and just treat the two columns as dead pixels, perhaps using a marquee effect to make up for it.
The most surprising moment of the night was running into a former student of mine from a fourth year game theory course at Waterloo (I had been a teaching assistant and had given some lectures.) He apparently remembered the course quite fondly.
Funnily enough, Beta's bar had run out of BOTTLED WATER by the end of the night, which is slightly sad because selling $4 water is like printing money for them. I saw a male bartender actually refilling people's water bottles from the soda gun by placing the spigot of the gun inside the mouth of the used water bottle--a process that seemed extremely unhygienic to me (this is my one serious complaint about the night).
I thought the lighting operator had done a particularly good job; he clearly knew the music and seldom missed a cue. The strobes at beta are amazing and the crowd responds really well to them (and the lighting in general). I wonder if people are just more alert overall when they're not under the influence of alcohol.
Mark Oliver played a solid opening set consisting mostly of less melodic commercial-type house. The manner in which he builds up an evening is really quite spectacular to watch. He seems to carefully control everything; a little tougher bassline here and there, adding in a i-VI chord progression during a breakdown, slowly building melodic and rhythmic elements, and finally deciding to completely whip the crowd into a frenzy. Gotta love him. Mark is a true professional. It's a shame that Beta spent the money to hire him before they had their liquor license, as the first hour of his set was prime liquor-selling tunage.
Mark played the vocal mix of Nalin & Kane - Beachball, which I really liked, but then layered some silly additional vocals over top of it. These did not sound good---in fact, they were out of key. I was mildly unimpressed.
Avicii was mind-blowingly good. He more-or-less played exactly what was expected of him. Bromance, Rapture, Swede Dreams, Jailbait, My Feelings for You, his remix of Drowning, Otto Knows — Hide N Seek, etc. Mixing was spot on, though some transitions were not as aggressive as they could have been. Avicii looked a bit distracted at times as if he was actually focusing on the DJing!
I enjoyed Avicii's set immensely as I love dancing in a huge crowd to epic, melodic music. However, I feel I came away with something a bit more profound. The crowd at Beta is young and not jaded like the househeads of Toronto; for them, the great watershed of electronic dance music is NOT between trance and house, but between melodic dance music and amelodic dance music. They cheer for MELODIES and they cheer for HUGE DROPS, even when they're not familiar with the music. When unfamiliar with a track, the moment when they go nuts is when the chord progression finally moves from i to VI, etc. I'm interested now to see how they respond to Sander Van Doorn; I suspect he may be liked a lot less than Gareth Emery and Avicii.
Overall, I really like Beta, its lights, its crowd, and the experience as a whole. It still feels very rough around the edges, but seems like it could be something really great if all goes well. I don't care too much about the liquor license because I don't drink when I go clubbing, but clearly their current business is unsustainable without one. I'd hate to see them go under because of not getting their license, and I wish there was more we could do to help. Maybe they should throw all ages parties or start selling -tons of glowsticks, t-shirts, and earplugs at the bar.
After Avicii's second encore, I left and walked home. While 90% of the way home, I discovered that Burger King was open 24 hours and remembered that I had a 2 for 1 Whopper coupon sitting in my wallet. Those were some goooooood Whoppers.
Sleep time! |
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| chinamon |
| great review, mate! |
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| GGM |
Good review indeed. Nice that you're constructively critical and not all roses and flowers like too many reviewers out there.
I'm a fan of this being in Waterloo but it's a shame its not in Toronto/Montreal in terms of profit pre-liquor license. Bump the hours from 10-4 to 2-9, shift bookings to a bit more underground style, double ticket/cover and water bottle cost and call it afterhours. Boom you got profit sans booze =)
And Avicii is definitely one to watch for I'd put money sayin that he's in the DJ Mag top 10 next year. I heard earlier in the week he was announced as the first headliner for 2011 Tomorrowland... Huge! |
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| FunkyCrew |
| hehe sweet review :) |
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| PurpleHaze |
| awesome review!!! 3 more weeks till sander van doorn!!!!!! |
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| DJ_Elyot |
Read on Facebook that somebody lost their coat/scarf or had it stolen. This saddens me greatly. Beta desperately needs a cheap, temporary solution to their coat check problem. It ought to pay for itself in coat check revenues anyway.
I'm still waiting for a Beta all-ages mau5 theme party with nothing but deadmau5 tunes all night. , I'd go. LOL. Clearly they're not so desperate yet. |
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| kotsy |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ_Elyot
Those were some goooooood Whoppers. |
lol, great closer |
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| Vanos |
| Writing this this review must have taken more time than you spent at a club ;) |
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| love_child |
| quote: | Originally posted by PurpleHaze
awesome review!!! 3 more weeks till sander van doorn!!!!!! |
He has gone downhill :( He plays way too much vocal trancy stuff now. |
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| FunkyCrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by love_child
He has gone downhill :( He plays way too much vocal trancy stuff now. |
glad someone else feels this way
SVD lost me 2 years ago.. , SVD in 2006 was the best dj out there
now's totally bleh :( |
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