Live Music: Nero at Royale in Boston

Pembroke — There are some shows that, no matter how long you have to wait, or how hard it is to get tickets, that you must see. I kept repeating this to myself as I waited from approximately 9 p.m. to 11:20 p.m. for Nero to take the stage at Royale in Boston on Dec. 15. The electricity and build up for this show were enough to let me know that I was in for a great show.

In the end it was worth the wait. In the last few years, the emergence of dubstep in America has taken the country’s club kids under its wings and given them something they can call their own. But, aside from Skrillex and a few others, dubstep legends like Rusko and Nero have largely been left out of the mainstream until now. It also seems like, judging from the crowd in Boston, that the audience for this kind of music has skipped past the 20 some things and onto the younger generation, as most of the people crowded into Royale certainly needed to be ID’d.

But, as dubstep has come of age, so have the DJs spinning it. And here we have Nero.

Hot on the heels of releasing Welcome Reality, Nero’s Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray have showed that they’re up for the challenge of producing dance friendly beats while stoking the dubstep fire for the younger generation. Whether its on their new album or performing live, the UK duo have honed their ability to tear through a dance set, taking it from grimy, pulse-punching to the ear-candy electronica with a few knob turns.

The band peppered in a few bigger tunes from their recent Welcome Reality album, opening with "Doomsday" and "Guilt" and playing most of the crowd’s seemingly favorite singles as arms thrashed and legs kicked.

There were also popular tracks like “Warp” by Steve Aoki, “Bass Cannon” by Flux Pavillion and “Levels” by Avicii.

Kids wearing beach gear, sunglasses and ‘Sex, Drugs, and Dubstep’ crowded onto the dance floor from the moment Nero hit the stage. Even before the set, they danced into a frenzy, hoping to get the UK DJs onto the stage by some sort of dance magic.

If more people expanded their understanding of dubstep beyond the usual tracks to see its roots in European dance evolution, more people would enjoy bands like Avicii and Nero. When you break it down, it’s just dance music, through and through.

Nero finally closed down with System of a Down's "Chop Suey", evoking a healthy amount of early 2000’s nostalgia for a very fitting crowd.

Skrillex Remixes Avicii’s “Levels”

What do you get when you take two of the biggest names in the world of dance music, and combine them with the biggest dance music anthem of 2011?:  Skrillex’s remix of Avicii’s “Levels,” a song of absolutely titanic proportions. “Levels” is undisputedly THE dance music song of the year. It has been remixed by some of the biggest names in the world of music. “Levels,” which features a vocal snippet from Etta James’ 1962 classic, “Something’s Got a Hold On Me,” has helped to bridge the gap between the world of dance music and the mainstream when Flo Rida sampled it in his song “Good Feeling.” This song has been played all over mainstream radio, and even in special television presentations such as NFL games.

With the recent release of Skrillex’s remix of the anthem, “Levels” is more wildly popular than ever. As somewhat of an ambassador to dance music, Skrillex is largely responsible for the popularization of dubstep and dance music in general. Skrillex infuses the euphoric progressive house banger with a hefty dose of dubstep. He adds some refreshing filth to the tune, and his re-imagination of the original is wildly creative and teeming with innovation. I have to say that Skrillex’s “Levels” remix is definitely one of his finest- it is quite possibly the very best song he has ever produced. The mark of a good remixer and producer is the ability to take an already phenomenal song and place a unique spin on it, creating a product that is arguably just as good as the original. Skrillex masters this feat with flying colors. Be on the lookout for big things from both Skrillex and Avicii; 2011 has been an absolutely huge year for both of these talented DJs and producers, and I can only anticipate that the best is yet to come.

Check out Skrillex’s “Levels” remix here! What are your thoughts?

We plot our top 10 2011 dance music trends | 2011 in review

With its biggest year yet, there was a lot going on in the dance music world in 2011.

When dubstep poster child Skrillex nabs almost as many Grammy nominations as one of the world’s biggest pop stars, that’s saying something. Namely, that 2011 was a big year for dance music. With this club-land achievement as our top trend, our other favorites of the last 12 months count down to it.

10. Steampunk
With its gothic tendencies, wild fashion and wilder parties, the Victorian-inspired sci-fi world of the Chicago Steampunk scene ran away with our imagination this year.

9. Moombahton
Its name sounds like the onomatopoeia of a Martian sneeze, but the burgeoning moombahton genre—pitched-down electro mixed with reggaeton’s midtempo chug—experienced a meteoric rise and is poised to take over in 2012.

8. Looking back
Electronic music is routinely breaking some new sound, but 2011 was also about its roots, be it Chicago’s Trax Records’ 30th birthday, Pete Tong’s 20 years on the radio, or the boys at DJhistory.com honoring DJ originators in The Record Players.

7. Dance bands
Disco rockers LCD Soundsystem may have called it quits, but reunited indie dance originators the Rapture (pictured) and Grammy-nominated Aussie outfit Cut Copy carried the torch with two of the year’s best records.

6. The Mid
Locally, no club traversed the varied trends in dance music better than the Mid. In its first year, the West Town venue managed to welcome trance kingpin Tiësto, dubstep architects Skream and Benga (twice), and even hip-hop godfather Afrika Bambaataa.

5. James Blake
Sure, James Blake was a press darling this year, but the bluesy crooning, masterful piano and rattling sub-bass productions on his self-titled debut and subsequent live sets deserve the hype.

4. Bass music
While many were fashioning dubstep for a rave, producers like Apparat, Jamie xx, SBTRKT and even Thom Yorke (in work with Modeselektor and Burial) lent bass music intense musicality. (For more, see James Blake.)

3. Deep house
Disguised by journalists using fancy titles like gothic house and even underground pop, acts like Art Department, Benoit & Sergio (pictured), Soul Clap, Visionquest and Wolf + Lamb really spent this year blazing a trail for a new generation of deep house producers.

2. Festival season
From deadmau5’s (pictured) mud-crusted Lollapalooza dance party to the three-day rave that was the North Coast Music Festival, dance music ruled 2011’s festival season (and that’s just locally—look to Electric Daisy Carnival or Coachella for more convincing).

1. World domination
Spin and Rolling Stone magazines are just two outlets that crowned dance music as this year’s force to be reckoned with. Replacing hip-hop as the pop music framework of choice, electro’s buzz, dubstep’s bass growl and house music’s infectious thump left no one immune in 2011.