MEME (Manitoba Electronic Music Exhibition)
Saturday, June 25, 2011
@ The Cube in Old Market Square
By Shanell Dupras
Free, good music that you can hear bumpin’ all through The Exchange? Check. An entertaining audience to watch while you tap your feet? Absolutely. Sounds like a great night? Yes, and no. Unfortunately I could not make it for the entire concert, but I did get the chance to see three local acts: JNL, Sisk, and Phaze-M. Keep in mind that these kinds of concerts are hard to review due to how they make their music. It seems difficult for them to mess up their sets unless they accidentally press the power button on their MacBooks.
The first DJ that I saw was JNL. His music had insane bass lines that I couldn’t help tapping my feet and bobbing my head to. With a great beat, always come interesting dancers of course. It was the typical rave dancers: neon everywhere, the constant smell of weed and… free hula-hoops for everyone! Thankfully the dancers were entertaining, because JNL failed to do anything interesting at all. I understand it may be difficult to move around during a set, but even a fist pump would have been exciting. JNL wasn’t the only victim to this though, all three DJs I saw that night were not entertaining to watch at all. Maybe I’m just nitpicking, but concerts should be entertaining to watch, not just to listen to.
Following JNL was DJ Sisk. One great things about these kinds of concerts is set up time in between artists is under five minutes. Sisk was the DJ of the night that could hook me in with extremely catchy melodies that I found myself humming afterwards. Apparently others thought the same since the crowd grew during his set. My only complaint with DJ Sisk is that at times his loud and obnoxious bass lines began giving me a headache from the vibrations.
As it began to get dark, the Cube began to light up in neon colours that complimented the dancers’ outfits. This made it more of a spectacle since the DJs still weren’t moving around at all on stage. By 8:20 Phaze-M had started his set, the neon lights changing to the beat of his songs. His first song had vocal appearances, which was a nice change of pace from the bass oriented songs from JNL and Sisk. Sadly, as his set went on it began to sound more like those two: bumping bass lines with simple, yet catchy, melodies. Which isn’t always bad, just repetitive. At least there was a slight change, right?
I ended up leaving after only three sets because after three hours of bass that could be heard all through the Exchange and beyond, I was beginning to get a headache. Overall, MEME was entertaining, although this music might have been better suited to their club shows, where alcohol may make more people motivated to dance. (Beer gardens just aren’t the same.) The music was worth it, although it is strange to say that I stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the neon coloured dancers.