05.25
Axwell is by far my favorite thing from Sweden.
I said it. I like him better than ikea, socialism and definitely more than Swedish fish. Those are waxy and synthetic. Axwell is anything but.
There’s a reason why my best friend has Swedish House Mafia listed as her religion on facebook. Axwell’s show at the Roseland was as close to a spiritual experience as I’ll probably ever get. But before I can even get into the show I have to talk about the venue.
Because it’s gross.
I get that the Roseland Ballroom in NYC is probably one of the best places for DJs to do shows in NYC. It’s not as cheesy as Pacha, not as exclusive as Lavo and the open space gives you the feel of a massive without actually being outdoors for 7 hours straight. Deadmau5, Steve Angello and and Armin Van Buren all choose the Roseland when they want to put on major shows in the city and since they can get away with intense pyrotechnics and crazy light shows I don’t blame them…I just wish it didn’t feel like a seedy broadway theater and have awful rose carpeting. The place was packed with under and over grown ravers too…if I didn’t have stage access I would have been in the worst mood ever when he was spinning.
Anyway. Axwell blew my mind. He introduced his set with a teaser of “Miami to Ibiza” and then remixed Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep”—just like SHM did in Miami. You could hear the crowd give a collective “oooooh” when he started to drop “Awooga” (since anyone who wasn’t in Miami or at Coachella had probably never heard it live before) and then he started experimenting with his set. For a solid 30 minutes Axwell—aka the king of instruments—was playing straight electro and killing it.
About halfway through his 4 hour set he got super Swedish on the mic and started saying “MY NAME IS AXWELL. I AM FROM THE SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA” and then led into SHM classics. “One”, “Nothing But Love”, “Teenage Crime” and “In the Air”. He even dropped some of my favorite pop mixes like “Otherside” and “Clocks” but my favorite parts of the set were definitely when he played the SHM remix of “The Island” and “Save The World”.
Saying Axwell put on an amazing show was an understatement. Then again I’m convinced the man can do no wrong.
All hail Axwell House Mafia.
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