Pendulum DJ Set – Yost Theater – November 15, 2012

Pendulum DJ Set
Yost Theater
November 15, 2012

Though original Pendulum band mates Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen have taken a break from touring live to work on their side project Knife Party, Paul 'El Hornet' Harding and MC Benjamin 'Verse' Mount have continued DJing and just embarked on a 12 stop North American Tour. They stormed through the Yost Theater last night in downtown Santa Ana as the second stop on this highly anticipated tour. This special 18-and-over event though booked by San Diego based LED, was mostly promoted by OC's own White Rabbit Group for an evening of banging beats and bass-in-your-face goodness which ignited a raging party despite the rain.

LED favorite FYOR was one of the opening selectors who had the privilege of warming up the crowd and sharing the stage which such an iconic band in the electronic dance music scene. We might have still been recovering from the madness at the Datsik show a couple of weeks ago, but we noticed the sound was a tad lower than normal this time. Regardless FYOR did a respectable job of splicing in some house with the electro hits the 18 year old crowd loves. Our favorite was Gesaffelstein's “Control Movement” which had the perfect warm up groove. By midnight however, those on the dance floor were packed like sardines and ready to be taken back by Pendulum's old school drum & bass sound.

See Also:
*Rusko Talks About Bringing UK Dubstep to Cali and Shares His New EP for Free
*Top Five Best and Worst Parts of Escape From Wonderland – NOS Events Center – October 27,2012
*Datsik Firepower Tour – Yost Theater – Monday October 22, 2012 [with VIDEO]

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Pendulum has been on the forefront of various types of electronic music for over a decade now incorporating everything from hard rock, heavy metal, electro, grime, dubstep and break beats into their live sets. El Hornet pleased his old school fans in attendance however, as he threw down with a sick mostly drum & bass DJ set with MC Verse hyping up the crowd all night. Though the upstairs VIP balcony and side VIP tables were mostly booked this was not your typical club going crowd. The hundreds of dance music enthusiasts were true fans of the dirty beats and ready to rage as they showed off their old school dance and light show moves.

Staying away from sounds favored by the mainstream bottle service crowd, El Hornet played Pendulum classics with their unique glitchy sound, lots of drum & basss, dubstep, and even a little electro as they dropped Knife Party hits to pump up the crowd. The synergy between the MC and DJ were masterful as they had everyone jumping up and down dancing up a storm. Incorporating remixes of Prodigy's “Smack My Bitch Up” with Skrillex-esque interludes the music intensified to the booming bass. Everyone was going hard on the dance floor as we saw plenty of chicks take off their shirts which were seething sweat from all the madness in the mosh pit and even in the VIP.

The Pendulum DJ set was everything we expected and more as they brought a unique blended style of drum & bass classics with today's evolving electronic sound even dropping some trap that had the crowd going wild. As the lasers, confetti and fog filled the already cluster-fucked dance floor, for a moment we forgot we were at a nightclub and were taken back to a festival like production. We can only hope Rob Swire changes his mind and they do some sort of reunion tour as well as a new Pendulum album in the next couple of years.

Critical Bias: Not a big drum & bass fanatic but have been in love with Pendulum since I heard “The Island.” It was pretty rad to hear their old school stuff and get down and dirty with everyone.

Crowd: Was very unique and selective with older fans, ravers, bass heads and young EDM noobs.

Overheard in the Crowd:Pendulum is ripping this club up so hard I think I broke my shoe!”

Random Notebook Dump: Can we say how much we love the taco, burritos and hot dogs wrapped in bacon stand outside which stays open till past 2am?!

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