Although this year’s Welcome Week show was not up to official rave standards, which would have included horse masks, glow in the dark clothing, the mass consumption of illegal drugs and the complete disregard of AU’s code of conduct, EDM group The White Panda delivered an exciting performance at Student Union Board’s show in the Tavern on August 29.
The show began at 9 p.m. with an opening set by AU sophomore and rapper, Terrell Green, who pumped up the crowd with beats and lyrics. In previous SUB shows held in Bender Arena, a local opening artist like Green would lose his presence with the large audience. However, the Tavern’s smaller venue proved beneficial to the young artist, as his fans spread intoxicating excitement throughout the Tavern.
Green performed with DJ Kevin Capasso and rappers Dele Amon, Toye Adenekan and Anil Cole-John.
The White Panda began performing at 10:10 p.m. and entranced the AU audience into hopping in tune to its music. Although SUB has previously hosted more well known acts such as Chance the Rapper and Run The Jewels, The White Panda managed to attract a large crowd in the confined space of the Tavern.
The Chicago-based group typically plays different subgenres of EDM, Tom Evans, a member and producer of The White Panda, told The Eagle.
“In terms of what we release online for casual listening, we do a combination now,” Evans said. “We dip into samples from oldies and hip-hop, but I would say a fairly common theme is digitally produced electronic music in our mashups.”
The group’s mashups and remixes consisted of multiple pop songs from the past 30 years. Samples included riffs from Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” and the heavily sampled White Stripes anthem “Seven Nation Army.”
“Something about electronic music is that it is very dynamic, it's not genre specific,” Evans said. “I think you’ve seen for example the Daft Punk album release, that was sort of a throwback to the disco area.”
Of all the mashups, the most notable and well received from the audience was The Notorious B.I.G’s “Juicy” fused with the Motown backup track of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back.”
The show looked so lively that it made it onto the D.C. Snapchat Story twice, according to the Saturday edition of D.C.’s Snapchat Story.
“I don’t think music is always becoming something totally new, it’s like a cycle, like you're hearing this deep house stuff with high-pitched female vocalists, its very eighties,” Evans said.
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