The first leg of the Harder Styles Tour 2016 culminated in Trauma Live’s home town, Los Angeles, CA last night, and I continue recovering from it as I type these words, dear reader. After dropping off my bud Nickolai at 5:30 am, I couldn’t help myself and indulged in that classic Angeleno vice: doughnuts. Sure, I screwed up my shaky gluten-free diet, but I needed the extra sugar rush to make it up that last bit of the 405. I inhaled an apple fritter—daring the last few exits to where I remembered my bed was. I crawled into it at 6:00 AM for the first reasonable amount of sleep that I had the chance to partake in since Thursday.

(DJ Mad Dog broke the chain in LA once again!)

I had to stay up every minute I could though, to witness a pioneering concert tour that will be long remembered. Future promoters read this line-up and weep because you will never see anything like it again: The Prophet, Scott Brown, Rob Gee, Vortex, Placid K, and Super Marco May. BAM! All certifiable legends in their own right, combined with hardcore superstar Mad Dog, and the first ever American appearance of Amnesys and The Melodyst who represent the next great wave in hardcore EDM/techno, or whatever the hell we are calling it now. Put that in your pipe and smoke it man, that line-up happened and I got to see the whole thing 3 times (save a couple hours in San Francisco because of a complete flight scheduling disaster).

I was an hour early to the Los Angeles show at Club Nokia, mainly because I was playing the very first set in the VIP lounge with DJ Mindcontroller. We were assigned the task of representing classic rave on vinyl with our set, which we gladly delivered to the old school heads. We couldn’t help playing some real cheezy stuff though. I mean, I hadn’t played the Lords of Acid’s “Take Control” in decades, and this was the perfect scenario to indulge in such vice. We were followed by Lostboy and Demigod, who represented the more UK breakbeat sound for the most part.

(Demigod gets classic!)

Thee O, Steve Loriah and Scott Brown (playing classics) followed it up in fine fashion, apparently, but I can’t directly report on them since I was busy downstairs at the time getting hammered by hardcore. Like the last Trauma show, there was so much going on in both sound areas you always had to make critical choices. You were going to see and hear something great, and miss something great no matter what you did.

I chose to be in the main area at about 2:00 AM where Placid K ruled last night. He laid down some brutal hardcore law during his short set that brought demons young and old out on the dance floor. A tough, driving, crushing kick is what this crowd wanted, and he hit ‘em with it perfectly.

Who was this crowd? It was classic LA hardcore, but with lots of new faces. Yeah, there were plenty of old schoolers, but it was definitely the newer hardstyle and rawstyle generation that filled the floor. Placid K has played in LA a few times earlier, so he knew how we want it served up, and he dished it out hot.

(Amnesys hammers the crowd at Los Angele’s Club Nokia)

Earlier in the night, like a fly on the wall, I got to hear a few DJs bitch about their set times in the dressing room, which happens frequently with DJs. Since there were so many stars on the line-up, the max set time was 45 minutes, most got 30. I had seen Amnesys in Edmonton, and he was great, but forced to constrict his set into 30 minutes, I dare say it might have been even better. His mixing was fast and superb. He actually used the effects on the Pioneer mixer, rather than just pretending to do so like some other EDM superstars. The guy can mix, its that simple, and he condensed all the power of his set into a small window that made it hit even harder.

Before the tour began, a few heads were complaining that the set-times would be too short on this tour. I say from experience now, that is total poppycock. Set after set was awesome. It was just all the best stuff. I know that some of you who read a “10 Tips for DJs” blog post think you know about mixing when you can wax eloquently about how a DJ needs time to build his or hers vibe. You ain’t impressing me no more with this beat-to-death meme. The Trauma line-up took their best stuff, condensed it down to the ultimate essence, and working in tandem, let it rip. There was never a dull moment. It hit hard and constantly. Super Marco May, Vortex, Scott Brown (who played two sets that night, happy hardcore in the main room and classics in the VIP Lounge), The Prophet, Mad Dog, The Melodyst and Rob Gee were all freaking ON FIRE. Mad Dog and The Prophet had the biggest crowds, as they were the headliners, but the drop off to the very last note Rob Gee played was virtually nil.

This actually created a bit of a problem for me. I vowed to pass out a copy of The HARD DATA to every attendee at the show. So I lined up 4 guys to help me out, Stephen Hughes, Nickolai, Alex Murphy and Jesse Simons. So I pull these guys out of the main room at like 2:30, telling them we gotta be ready at the exit for people to leave. No one did! So basically they were all probably mad that I broke them away from the show needlessly. Everyone waited for the last note of Rob Gee’s set at 4:00 AM to leave, and fortunately those 4 hombres had my back to get our favorite ‘zine into everyone’s hot little hands at the end.

Speaking of Rob Gee, I have to give the man big props for not only his riveting sets, but his dedication to the fans. This cool cat named Jackson had drove all the way from Texas to see the show, and wanted to meet and greet the artists Something got messed up and despite buying the VIP pass and all, he didn’t get a chance to do so. So Stephen Hughes texts me in the middle of passing out THDs to tell me about this. I go back stage as Rob is getting ready to leave the venue and let him know the situation. The Gee-man hopped off the stage in a flash and was out there to meet Jackson and make sure he didn’t drive back to Texas without meeting one of his hardcore heroes. It was a great way to end a great show, and the Trauma Harder Styles Tour, leg 1, was complete.

So I have 4 days to get my Trauma-tized life back in order before I head out to Mesa, Arizona to meet up with Brandon and the SDK crew for leg 2 of the tour and another sick line-up. I mean, look at this slate of artist joining the tour and stare in disbelief:

Alien T
DJ BUZZ FUZZ
Digital Punk
Dr. Peacock
MC Ruffian
Meccano Twins
Partyraiser
Rotterdamterrorcorps
SRB / Dione
Tommyknocker

After that is Denver on Saturday, and then leg 3 is Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. So stay tuned folks, and remember, the rhythm is life and death!

Deadly Buda