Electronic music has a bit of a performance issue. While there are a ton of electronic artists who bring stunning AV displays and energy — or both — to their live shows, the two default stage positions still seem to be "hunched over a laptop" or "standing behind the decks waving your arms like you're trying to signal a plane."
Here are a few of the electronic artists who we think have done a great job of stepping up their stage game.
A Tribe Called Red
In addition to watching the three members of Tribe pal around and love the heck out of life, they always bring out at least one hoop dancer. If you’ve never seen someone perform traditional First Nations dance to moombahton beat, you’re missing out.
A-Trak
You can go here to see all the reasons why A-Trak is so much fun to see in person, but whether he’s giving you the ridiculous, over-the-top stage show that is Duck Sauce or just cutting and scratching like a fiend, he’s always worth watching.
(Duck Sauce - Live @ Coachella 2014 Weekend 1 (720p) from ryyckxxa on Vimeo)
Steve Aoki
OK, we know electronic music purists are going to be massively annoyed at the Neon Punk’s presence on this list. We realize that he may occasionally just be playing a Winamp file — that’s almost certainly the case when he’s off doing things like white-water rafting across the crowd — but this guy is exciting. The gimmicks work. The Aoki Cake Throw is basically the Lambeau Leap of EDM. He interacts. He’s having fun. If that fun doesn’t rub off on you a little bit, you may be dead.
Rich Aucoin
Rich Aucoin is a wild party. Screw standing around behind a laptop; he’ll often just press play so he can run around with a mic, get the whole crowd running under one of those grade-school parachute things and shoot confetti cannons.
(RICH AUCOIN (Live at Steam Whistle) from Southern Souls on Vimeo)
Daft Punk
Robot heads, elaborate sets, dancers: these guys are basically a challenge to the electronic community to do better.
Dan Deacon
Few artists tend to let the crowd get as up close and personal as Deacon does. You can find dozens of videos on the internet where the audience is pretty much on top of him. We also enjoy that, rather than the usual sterile laptop-and-MIDI controller set-up, he has what looks like the sale bin of an electronics surplus store spread out in front of him.
Glitch Mob
If there’s one thing we like about Glitch Mob — other than the sheer joy they bring to playing — it’s their willingness to try different things. A guerilla show in the streets of San Francisco? Why not. Aerial silk performers at the side of the stage? Sure. Keep mixing it up, you guys.
Grimes
Just one woman stuck behind a pile of electronics? Why not bring in a dance team? That will liven things up. (Also, it helps if you exude charm and charisma out of your pores.)
Justice
A Justice show is the only time you can wear sunglasses either indoors or at night time and not look like a giant tool. The lights from the stage are so bright that, without them, you’ll suffer temporary blindness for 10 minutes. It’s genius.
Lunice
We recently watched Lunice spend amost of a set dancing in front of his rig. He often seems to be having as much fun as, if not more fun than, most of the crowd.
(LFTF Presents: LUNICE // SXSW 2012 from LFTF on Vimeo)
Underworld
Way back in the 1990s, when people carried pagers and dinosaurs roamed the Earth, Underworld were basically the forefathers of charismatic electronic music performers. They’re an electronic music act with a frontman that would make most modern rock acts jealous of Karl Hynde. They were also the only non-guitar-based act on our list of the loudest bands ever.
by Chris Dart via Electronic RSS
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