This past weekend, Grammy award winner and OWSLA records founder, Skrillex, took Chicago by storm.  The last time Sonny Moore graced the windy city with his presence was this past Lollapalooza where he closed out the festival DJing in his iconic mothership.  That Sunday night set left old and new fans wanting to hear more to the point that React Presents had to book him twice in one weekend for his fall tour.  The first show of the weekend took place at Chicago’s very own site-seeing attraction, Navy Pier, which has a capacity of 12,000 people.  This night began early as I cannot remember the last time I was heading to a show at 7pm.  Immediately after walking into the warehouse type building at the end of the dock, the security split up the lines between men and women, or should I say girls and boys.  Thousands of fans impatiently gathered in line to get searched and ID’ed decked out in their finest rave gear and Halloween costumes, some of them looking like they turned 16 the day before.  When we finally made it through the traffic jam of people, we were led into the part of Navy Pier where they usually hold large expos and job fairs. Skrillex’s first stop of the night was obviously for the young ones, as the venue was big enough to house everyone, but the acoustics of the building were not meant to amplify electronic music.  Nonetheless, Skrillex played a show perfect for the type of crowd that attended. The show began with Sonny entering the stage to the Chicago Bull’s theme song decked out in a #1, Derek Rose jersey.  His set featured all of his popular tracks such as, “Kyoto,” “Bangarang,” “Devil’s Den,” “First Of The Year (Equinox), “Promises” by Nero (Skrillex Remix), “Cinema” and “Make it Bun Dem,” but of course played as VIP versions.  Without his ship to DJ in the stage seemed a a little bare, but the LED panels, smoke, confetti, lasers and balloons more than made up for what I thought was missing.  Genres do not seem to matter when it comes to a Skrillex set as he even played Darth Vadar’s theme “Imperial March” in the middle of his set just because he can as well as “Ah Zabenya” from the Lion King.  As the set came to a close, Skrillex yelled out, “Oh Jooooshy!”  Most fans seemed clueless to what was happening, but I knew that was our very own “hoody boy,” Josh Young, of Flosstradamus.  The two of them “turnt up” the crowd with Flosstradamus‘ track “Mosh Pit.”  As the night came to a close for the younger ones, it was just beginning for Skrillex and his team.  With show number one in the books it was now time for Sonny to head to the MID nightclub for a proper late night set that was suppose to be the last of the weekend.  Since two shows were not enough for this music mogul, on Sunday night Skrillex took over The Underground Chicago nightclub where he played with our very own hometown heroes, PHNM and Zebo.  Skrillex left all of Chicago talking for not only playing sets that were well thought out, skillful and full of energy, but also showing a high level of respect to the promotors, openers, fellow DJ’s in the scene and fans he had met.  Sonny is showing everyone that you can have 19 million fans on Facebook and still be a genuine, down to earth musician.  Chicago was happy to have him and we cannot wait for his return.

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