Bangkok’s musical horizons were opened up ever so slightly when DJ Shadow played a sold out show at Demo nightclub in Thonglor Saturday Sept. 25. The American turntablist phenom – who creates original songs completely out of samples – explained to the full house before he kicked off that what they were about to see/hear was nothing like a standard club DJ.
Indeed, some attendees could be forgiven for having low expectations for the show… The upscale nightclub venue and crowd wouldn’t portend to be the best environment for DJ Shadow’s more avante-garde, trippy tunes. But the crowd was there to party and actually seemed to be quite full of serious DJ Shadow devotees. They cheered along when Shadow mixed in a hit and dutifully shook their booties or at the least nodded their heads even through the more experimental sections of the set. And DJ Shadow delivered – he started off with an extended musical intro leading into one of his most famous tracks “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt” that had the crowd pumping their fists and hooting and from there the music never stopped. Check the video here (really kicks in at 3:08):
Things did get very experimental during parts of the show, but never for long enough for the crowd to lose interest. Shadow seems to have incorporated more drum ‘n’ bass and dubstep into his style, which offered a welcome uptempo feel to sections of the set. He seemed to be enjoying the show and said something about the crowd being better at Demo than his previous gig, which was the night before at Bed. So he gave Demo a little something special and played a few jams he said he hadn’t previously. Behind the DJ a never-ending kaleidoscope of visuals morphed for the entire show, which added to the vibe. The crowd was a nice mix of Thai Thonglor types and expats from all over who came to see DJ Shadow. The sight of hi-so high-heel wearing trying to dance to Shadow’s funky rhythms was something to behold. Event promoters Rock N Rolla put on the show and let something like 250 people in free who RSVP’d on Facebook. That was extremely nice of them. One of the final songs Shadow played was “Organ Donor”, a fan favorite. That video is here:
