Article by Alexis Restrepo
Photos by Christopher Willauer
Indian headdresses, rainbow furry knee-high boots, cat ears, and LED dreadlocks. Those were just some of the many things I saw the crowd wearing at the Zeds Dead Concert. Yes, the IMU Main Lounge was filled with people from every walk of life to see the Canadian electronic duo, Zeds Dead, Wednesday night. Surprisingly enough, many seemed as though they weren’t UI students, but simply big fans of the duo whose named comes from a Pulp Fiction reference.
At 8 PM, the slightly awkward and nerdy DJ Arbiter opened the show and got the party started with a surprisingly impressive, bass-filled half hour set. The spooky UZ followed Arbiter with a high energy hour long set. I say spooky due to fact that he wore an all-black hood, pair of sunglasses and a bandanna which concealed his face for the entirety of his set. To add to the creepiness, the set began with a mix revolving around the laughter audio stripped from Michael Jackson’s 80’s hit, Thriller. UZ’s set reached its high point midway through, when a few actually seemed to be in a trance while they danced to the electric beats. In the back, a few guys even had a solid 2 foot radius of space because of the sporadic flailing gestures they made while dancing. Others simply pumped fists, while some danced with flashing hula-hoops, and nunchucks. One brave soul even had a flashing baby binky in his mouth, (and yes I said his mouth).
The evening reached its climax when Zeds Dead hit the stage at 9:40 PM. If you weren’t dancing, you must have been either comatose, part of the SCOPE crew, or an officer working the show. The bass in the Main Lounge was insane, and pulsated through everyone. The entire crowd had an amazing time. Such an amazing time, that after their set ended and people began to leave, a chant began in the crowd of, “One more song! One more song! One more song!”
The chant worked and Zeds Dead re-emerged from backstage to play two more songs. I saw many things that night, including a girl taken away by the police, a girl participating in interpretive dance, and a girl who bit open a glow stick and got the chemical solution in her eye. Wednesday was definitely a night I will remember. If you missed out on Zeds Dead, their next nearby shows will be at the Congress Theater in Chicago on December 29th, or the Future Sound Dance Music Festival in May, 2013 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Il. To stay up to date with Zeds Dead, “Like” them on Facebook.
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