Gil Perez/ Onionskn

Candyland at Avalon

Seven Lions, Flinch and Candyland
Avalon Hollywood
May 17th, 2013

An abundance of young dubstep/electro aficionados and the stench of cigarette smoke dominated at Avalon in Hollywood on Friday night as the Santa Barbara native Seven Lions (born Jeff Montalvo) unleashed a slew of original tracks and remixes carefully spliced with everything from dubstep, trance, electro and progressive house. Despite playing three shows in three different states in just 24 hours, Montalvo was all business and completely on point as he headbanged with a mop of long, brown throughout his entire set. The 19-and-over "CONTROL Fridays" crowd went wild for Seven Lions' Avalon debut as well as opening acts At Dawn We Rage, Candyland and Flinch. Being that it was also promoter/artist manager Ryan Jaso's birthday, everyone was in attendance including Skrillex, Peacetreaty and Whiiite and there was plenty of cake throwing shenanigans to go along with the epic beats.

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Andrew Youssef / OC Weekly

The Black Keys

KROQ Weenie Roast 2013
Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
May 18, 2013
The lineup for KROQ's Weenie Roast provides a good time capsule of what is currently popular on terrestrial radio, including a number of bands who played Coachella this year and a host of newer, up-and-coming bands who could potentially make the jump to the main stage in the future.

Topping this eclectic assortment of bands were the Black Keys. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have been touring tirelessly and are at the point at which their most recent album, El Camino, seems pretty old. But having played KROQ Acoustic Christmas, Coachella and the Honda Center, the Black Keys proved more than capable headliners as they blitzed through such hits as "Tighten Up," "Gold On the Ceiling" and "Howlin' for You." Auerbach still has one of the fuzziest live guitar tones in the business, and the bespectacled, drum-bashing Carney rocked with razor-sharp precision.

While older folks such as me remember Jared Leto as Jordan Catelano from My So-Called Life, Leto is known to most people as the lead singer and guitarist for 30 Seconds to Mars. They are gearing up for the release of their new album, Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams. Leto worked the KROQ audience the moment he popped up in the middle of the crowd for "The Kill (Bury Me)." Fans ate up every moment, as their show climaxed with blasts of confetti and an all-out stage invasion to end their set.

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Jeff Allen / Trilogy Events

MAKJ at the Yost Theater

MAKJ
Yost Theater
May 11, 2013

On Friday night, Mackenzie Johnson, better known by his stage name MAKJ, made his Yost Theater debut in downtown Santa Ana. The 22 year-old DJ and Icon Collective producing school graduate has quickly risen in the EDM ranks with mash-ups, bootlegs and originals that were quickly supported by the likes of Tiësto, Afrojack and Nicky Romero. Recently just headlining the Eco Village stage at Ultra Music Festival in Miami an playing the infamous Juicy Beach alongside Juicy Music owner Robbie Rivera, MAKJ continued his momentum this weekend, bringing his electro house sound to OC with opening support from OC-based DJ Henry Fong.

The pedigree he showed at the Yost was developed through some solid teaching early in his career. MAKJ met the late DJ AM through mutual friends DJ Marshall Barnes and DJ Politik in 2008. Mentored by AM, he learned the art of scratching and deejaying to diverse crowds and through a blend of different genres. He developed his own take on EDM, employing his hip-hop influences, signature edits to classics and remixes which quickly caught on to some of the biggest names in dance music. "I was making tracks that were very easy to use," Johnson said in an interview prior to his set. "They could play it everywhere, from a bar mitzvah to XS in Las Vegas." Learning a lot about producing format, arrangement and what the biggest DJ's like Mackenzie combined his deejaying skills to create his alter ego, MAKJ.

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Jorge Meza / OC Weekly

Armin Van Buuren at the Sold Out Palladium

Armin Van Buuren
The Palladium
May 3, 2013

This weekend, the super-star DJ/producer Armin Van Buuren launched his highly anticipated tour for his new album Intense at the legendary Hollywood Palladium. Armin chose Los Angeles ,believe it or not, even after his famed "A State of Trance" radio show is broadcast through more than 62 radio stations to 52 different countries and has an average of 20 million listeners each week. Naturally the show, put on by Van Buuren's Armada label and through Insomniac Events, sold out in less than five minutes--proving that trance is still a major player in the North American "EDM" craze. With opening act Antillas and a slew of live singers joining Armin, the evening proved to be worth the wait as fans got a preview of what to expect when he comes back for his famed "Armin Only" experience.

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Beautiful, young Melanie

Melanie's voice is soft and raspy at the same time. If you didn't know who you were talking to, you'd have no idea that she played alongside legends at Woodstock and toured around the world. She's immediately kind and humble in her expressions. "I sense that something has got to give, I sense that people are becoming more aware...I'm just very hopeful for humanity," she says. It carries through her stories no matter if she's talking about the music industry, touring, songwriting, or about her beloved, late husband, Peter.

The New York singer--born Melanie Anne Safka--became famous for her songs "Brand New Key," and "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma." She performed for over 500,000 concertgoers at Woodstock in her early 20s. But well after the 60s faded, she continued to write and tour, and would you believe, with the rising of hipsters, she's gained a whole new following.

Melanie will wrap up her tour with Romancing the West, an on-stage documentary about Western music, very shortly, and while the show is running in Orange County she was lovely enough to speak with the Weekly. We're not worthy!

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Erik Kabik

Vampire Weekend

While the masses flocked to Indio to scorch themselves at Coachella this weekend, I decided to die of heat exhaustion in another desert--Las Vegas. You see, all those festival bands have to kill time between weekends somehow, and what better way to skip up to Sin City for a show? It works out well for them and all of us who don't want to fork out the dough to go, well, get sunburned.

Thanks to the lovely people at The Cosmopolitan, I was able to stay in Vegas Friday and Saturday night on a writer's salary and catch Vampire Weekend and Yeah Yeah Yeahs in their transitional Coachella moments. The bands played at the hotel/casino's Blvd Pool (yes, this venue acts as a pool/lounge area for guests during the day, pretty awesome), giving their fans a much more intimate concert setting than being squished between thousands upon thousands of sweaty festival goers.

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Fabian Ortiz

Lulu and Alejandra at Ultra Music Festival

Ultra Music Festival celebrated its 15th annual edition by expanding over two three-day weekends (a la Coachella) making it the largest electronic music festival in the US and the only one in the world to take place over two weekends. Acts included some of the worlds biggest EDM names such as Tiësto, Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, Deadmau5, Calvin Harris to non dance music artist like Snoop Dogg and Yesayer.

Overlooking the breathtaking downtown Miami skyline and marina at Bayfront Park, the festival brought over 165,000 dance music fans from all over the world - literally. The sea of participants adorned flags, shirts, hats and everything you could imagine to represent their hometowns, states and countries. Among those festival revelers was myself and my mother Lourdes whom I brought along for the ride so she could see for herself what the EDM festival craze is all about. Perhaps this adventure would bring us closer and maybe she won't think I'm so crazy for making the pilgrimage year after year to attend the biggest festivals out there. I know what you're thinking: "Wow this girl must be crazy." But in actuality it was her own adventurous spirit who wanted to join me. Perhaps it's where I get it from?

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Marina Martinez

Jack Grisham of T.S.O.L.

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Shannon Nehls / OC Weekly

Swedish House Mafia

Swedish House Mafia
March 8th - 9th, 2013
LA Historic Park

Who would have thought that just after seeing the legendary Tiësto sell out the Staples Center on March 2 that LA would receive another one of the biggest EDM weekends since Electric Daisy Carnival was held at the Los Angeles Colosseum. Erick Morillo played at Avalon AND Sound Nightclub, Carl Cox brought the house down at Exchange, Sasha was also at Sound and Ben Klock saw the sun rise at an incredible warehouse party. But the biggest event of the weekend and probably year was Swedish House Mafia's Masquerade Motel which played it's final west coast dates of their "One Last Tour" on Friday March 8th and Saturday the 9th at the LA Historic Park. Only a group as big as Swedish House Mafia would be able to sell 35,000 tickets in minutes only to add more show dates, which included this Friday night event.

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Shannon Nehls / OC Weekly

Tiësto's Club Life at the Staples Center

Tiësto
Staples Center
March 2, 2013
This weekend, the mega-star Dutch DJ/producer Tijs Michiel Verwest, better known as Tiësto, returned to Los Angeles via the Staples Center after his epic, soldout show at the Honda Center in 2011 for 26,000 electronic dance music fans. This marks the second time an EDM artist has played a headlining gig at the legendary venue (Kaskade brought his Freaks of Nature Tour to the Staples Center just last summer). Thanks to powerhouse promoters Insomniac Events and Goldenvoice, the College Invasion Tour brought in DJ Alvaro & Tommy Trash as the opening selectors of the evening, which sent loud basslines all the way to Figueroa at an early 6 p.m.

See Also: Why Tiësto Became an Indie-Inspired Electro Chameleon
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