MSTRKRFT & Bloody Beatroots – 4.3.09
“Oh, God damn!” This was my reaction when I saw hundreds of people trying to get into Webster Hall Friday night to see MSTRKRFT and The Bloody Beatroots. Fortunately for me the huge crowd was not aware that they could go through the Studio entrance where there was no line and pay 1/4th of the cover. I was inside in under 2 minutes. At some point the fire department came and kicked some people out. I am not sure exactly what happend but it was madness. Capacity there is 1700 I am told, my guess is that they were slightly over sold… I have seen MSTRKRFT a number of times, but it has been nothing like this. I was talking to Alex English about how crazy it was that electronic music is so big. I knew he was part of the rave scene in the 90’s when it was huge. I grew up in DC which had one of the biggest scenes in the US so I was involved in some of that, and as big as it got, and as huge of parties I went to, it seemed like most of the people were involved in some underground culture. Last night there were so many people that I would never expect to see at a rave or at a dance party a year ago. It seems people traded in UFO’s and E for Aflliction and coke. It was prety nuts.
I met the Beatroots and MSTRKRFT a year ago at SXSW and even though they were both big then, it was nothing like last night. Jesus. Speaking of, let me show off this picture I took at SXSW last year of JunkieXL and the Beatroots. I think it is prety great. Also speaking of SXSW a band I met at the same party, The Whip were hanging out backstage. It was cool to see them again. We hung out a bit last year. I hear they are blowing up now too. Awesome.
Anyway, the show was fun, but there was so much smoke that it was almost impossible to shoot anything on stage. They made us stay behind MSTRKFT so I couldn’t even get close to getting a good shot. I got some decent ones of the Bloody Beatroots though, plus a lot of good crowd and backstage shots It was a super fun party despite the crowds, heat and everyone being super stressed out. I am pretty glad I was there, although I heard the Ruff Club 3rd anniversary party was pretty sick too. Anyone make it out to both? How were they?
Okay, on to the photos… Click here to see all the madness.
Webster Hall is always the worse place when bands and djs that are “blowing up” come to town. Samething happened with MGMT and JUSTICE.