By Aurora Wetherill, of LightsOn w/ Aurora, Thursdays @10pm.
Have you heard of this tropical house music? It’s this new thing all the kids are listening to, heavy on the synthetic flutes and steel drums, with epic drops remixed into familiar media. If you know tropical house, odds are you know the name Kygo. Kygo is a 23 year old Norwegian man with a funny voice and a great relationship with his fans. He has remixed such gems as Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and The Weekend’s “Often.” People like him. I like him. I saw him and his compatriot, Thomas Jack, on their Endless Summer tour at Union Transfer on the Friday of fall pause.
First off, Union Transfer is an excellent venue. They keep the place cool, the bathrooms are accessible, and water is fairly cheap. I got in before the rest of the patrons because I am over 21, which is pretty sweet. The bouncers remember faces, so you can drop in and drop out as you please.
We arrived shortly before Thomas Jack went on. He came on, and everyone pushed forward to get a closer look at his goofy curly locks and smile. He did a fairly good job of keeping the audience’s attention, and he played a goodly number of original mixes. He played his spectacular mix of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and we went crazy on our own, a distance away from the awful crowd, tucked in near the exit. An underage EDM crowd is a terrible sea to try to swim; you have been warned.
Thomas Jack, spinning wonderful house jams.
Kygo himself was excellent, and extremely engaging. He only played a couple of new mixes, and didn’t do any real mixing during the show, at least from what I could tell. But he ordered the songs well and provided pleasant tropically themed visual backdrops for the set. The crowd was very emotionally responsive and was the most lively I’ve literally ever seen at a Philly show. For the finale, he played his mix of The Weekend’s “Often,” and the crowd just melted. It got fairly sensual in there.
Basically: tickets were cheap (20$,) parking was REALLY cheap, and I got to hear some of my favorite jams pumped at levels usually wildly unacceptable for my surroundings. Overall, a pretty solid night.
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