Skrillex (2026)

One Liner: Pretty damn terrible, aggro EDM
Wikipedia Genre: Dubstep, brostep, EDM, electro house, pop, post-hardcore, emo
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Headliner (ugh)
Day: ???
Weekend One Only.

[location].

Thoughts:  Last here in 2014.  I missed that show, but before I get into a more fullsome discussion and history, I was very entertained to read back over my recounting of seeing him play at Stubb's that year instead.  Enjoy.

"If you have been reading my other posts, you'll know that I have been excited about seeing Skrillex. I still couldn't tell you what the hell the difference is between dubstep and techno or EDM or whatever else name this stuff has been given, but I freaking love Bangarang. One more time!

However, I wanted to go see Eminem play the Saturday night of ACL 2014, so I knew I was going to have to miss out on Skrillex's show. Until my friend Joseph scored us a pair of tickets to go see him at Stubb's outdoor for the second weekend of ACL. Both of us were pretty pumped, and I spent a large part of that Friday playing the new album (Recess) to get myself all ready to go.

And it was lame. So lame. I think the underlying reason is that I just don't do the drugs like the kids these days. The only way that the people around me could have been as excited as they were by this concert is if they were doing the ecstasies or Molly or freebasing bathsalts or whatever. This concert consisted of Skrillex hitting buttons on his control panel to play songs, and then doing his best to pump up the crowd by pumping his fists or shooting finger guns or yelling super original things like "Whats up AUSTIN!?!" or "get your hands UP AUSTIN!!" Multiple times during the show he would step up onto his control console thing and try to hype us up or get us to clap together.

Also, his crowd was exceedingly aggro.  Just a bunch of 'roided up 20-year old dudes who wanted to ram into other people.  I hated that for sure.

In case you want to know, dubstep is defined as a genre of EDM that originated in South London and generally features syncopated drum and percussion with prominent sub bass frequencies. Reading about it hurts my head. The stylistic origins noted on Wikipedia are reggae, dub, grime, 2-step garage, drum and bass, and breakstep. Uh, reggae? I'm not a huge reggae guy or anything, but "No Woman No Cry" did not spawn Skrillex. And no one has ever heard of those other styles of music. Someone in their parent's basement in Cleveland just made that stuff up to confuse old people like me.

I was hopeful that Joseph was going to give me a glowing review of the show, because he was hammered with pre-show plans for a cab ride, and that would support my theory that I needed to be in a different mind-set to have enjoyed the show. No such luck. A random sampling of some of his texts from after the show:

"Not gonna lie... Awful"
"Unless you are high and 18"
"I'm going to eat some tacos and go home"
"It's much worse than you and I mixing a show" [which really can't be true. I wouldn't even have the first clue how to torture synthesizers and drum machines into making those noises]
"But serious. Wtf was that show?"
As well as some fun auto-correct entries like "Syrah" and "I marry."

Thinking back on the show, I think it had all of the pieces I was expecting. Ridiculously loud and deep bass (thank God I brought ear plugs. I am sooo old). Some of the popular songs I had heard before, plus a few other ones incorporating current rap hits that were kind of fun. A huge sweaty crowd, almost exclusively under 30, filming every second on their phone so they can watch it over and over again (I guess? Weirdos.). So I'm not really sure what my problem was, but I just didn't feel the hype or excitement once I was standing there among the crowd. Glad I gave it a shot. No need to try to see him again."

So, there you have it.  Maybe the worst show I can remember seeing at Stubb's.  And now he is a top headliner for ACL!  Despite having no popular releases for years unless he had Justin Beiber on the track.  Such a disappointment to see him on the poster at all, much less as #5 on the whole thing.

I guess the whole lineup has a lot more EDM than expected.  Cut out the rap and country and just go EDM and pop?

Anyway, this is Sonny John Moore, and if you have never seen him he looks like Corey Feldman.  He was originally the lead singer for a hardcore band called From First to Last, and then went out on his own to continue trying to make that same sort of music.  He was scheduled to record a debut album on his own, but that session was apparently cancelled, and in 2010 he fired out a dubstep album called My Name is Skrillex as a free download on MySpace.  His real debut was later that year, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, and it won him three freaking Grammy Awards - Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best Dance Recording, and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.  The title track was that winner, and it now has 238 million streams.

Does anyone else get stressed out by that song?  That being said, that song (with no actual video) has over 347 MILLION freaking views on YouTube. What the what? Maybe if you take ecstasy. I don’t know, it’s interesting? Not sure how to dance to it other than doing the Bernie. On the other hand, Bangarang is a ridiculous animal slice of badassery that I still don’t get enough of. If you have not heard it before, you need to click on the YouTube link way up above, turn it up very loud, stand up in an area where you won’t break anything valuable, and just do what you need to do for 3 minutes.

The build-up and release (a/k/a The Drop, as described in 9/10s of all Rolling Stone articles about EDM. I swear they'd say Creedence used bass drops if they published an article tomorrow) is freaking fantastic. This type of music is apparently derived from Dubstep, which is a thing in the UK. According to RS, people trying to insult Skrillex call is Brostep because it attracts bro-ey douches. I get that too - very true in my experience. 

But it was in 2015 that Skrillex really figured out his meal ticket.  He made an album with Diplo called Jack U that invited a bunch of famous collaborators to the mic - 2 Chainz, Missy Elliot, and crucially, Justin Beiber.

Skrillex and Diplo present Jack U. Kingpin EDM stuff, with some of these tunes bringing the pain while others are kind of bland. Best ones are the "Take U There" remix with Missy Elliott, "Beats Knockin'," (this is what I wanted his concert to sound like, instead of lame-o-rama), and "Febreze." The weakest one has Justin Beiber, which is not alone a reason for disliking it, but its just a boring crooner song. And of course, that is the track with over a BILLION stupid streams.  

But overall, it is not a good album.  I re-tried Recess, and it makes work way more stressful than it needs to be.  Just an unrelenting stream of aggressive beats and sounds.  I do have to make one more comment - I worked with the church youth group for like eight years, and some of the Senior knucklehead boys would repeatedly play a Skrillex song called "Devil's Den" because they thought it was funny how awful it sounds.  I hated it.

I very much doubt I will go watch this show.  I think he is pretty bad.