Major Lazer’s music has moved from its origins as an uncertain, blurry blend of global dance genres into a crisp, clean, poppy fusion of collaborators and styles that has come under scrutiny, both wholly positive and wholly negative, for its repackaging of styles through the lens of festival-based EDM.
As a project, it’s most successful when it’s least reflective, moving away from shades and subtleties into heady, unapologetic pop, and today, there are only hints of the complexity and ambiguity of tracks such as ‘Get Free’, which, as many of the tracks do in this hook-laden, drop-laden set, disappears into noise as soon as it begins.
The act, headed by Diplo, with the aid of Jillionaire and Walshy Fire, innovates and experiments with the boundaries of EDM where those such as David Guetta would stay clear; tonight, though, the gig is a jittery, rapid, attention-deficit run through a mix of the hits, the three DJs content to recast themselves as celebrity organisers at a big, frenetic party full of eagerly complicit guests.
The gig is full of stimulants and relentless demands for interaction: the three are accompanied by four hyperactive, untiring dancers, and coach the crowd in how to move appropriately; at points they aggressively demand the audience take their shirts off; Diplo is carried through the audience in a giant hamster ball; cannons blast confetti and smoke into the audience.
The mix – where tracks are never fully finished, where they dissolve into drops early, are sped up or pitched up, where ‘Jump Around’ crops up with no hint of irony – is purely functional, serving just to fuel movement, and the effect is an intense, unremitting reimagining of the songs.
Words: Tony Boardman
