Ever since it was announced on Facebook, I've had the Wick-It The Instigator & Archnemesis show jotted down on my calendar. I was very excited for this show since Wick-It was one of the artists I discovered at Forecastle, and knew he'd put on a great show at Headliner's, which is one of my favorite music venues. I wasn't super familiar with Archnemesis, but after listening to some of his stuff on Spotify, I thought he'd be a great opener. But day of, it was hard to motivate myself to go. Through some encouragement from my girlfriend and friends, I decided to swap the sweat pants for jeans, guzzle down a Red Bull, and head to the show.
When we got to Headliner's, we saw a concerning sight. The parking lot across the street was damn near empty and there was only one car parked on the street out front. Kind of odd for a weekend show at Headliner's. Usually the place is packed with a long line outside. We had come this far already, so we went ahead and purchased our tickets at the window and went inside. Inside was a pretty sad sight to behold. It was basically a ghost town. There were maybe 20 people on the dance floor, but they looked like they were having fun. I'm sure some people would turn around at this point and try to get their $12 back, but since I was all hopped up on energy drinks, we decided to b-line it to the dance floor front-and-center. I'm glad we stayed. While I'm sure both Wick-It and Archnemesis would've preferred more people, I really enjoyed the more intimate atmosphere.
Archnemesis was on the stage when we got there. If the colorful display of lights he had didn't attract your attention, his amazing fro surely would've. Watching that thing sway in front of the lights was mesmerizing. As was his entire visual set. While groovy electronic music rode the sound waves and penetrated our bodies, light was dancing and pulsing and flowing to the beat. One of the best electronic shows I've seen from a visual standpoint.
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| Archnemesis and his colorful display of lights |
Even though there were only 20 of us on the dance floor, not a single body was motionless. As I looked around people were bobbing their heads, swinging their hips, shuffling their feet, wailing their arms, jiggling their asses, and shaking their shoulders. It was full-blown dance party with your host, Archnemesis. Not wanting to be the only one sporting the afro, he passed out an array of colorful afro wigs. It had to be an incredible sight to see from his point of view. My favorite song of his set that night was his Welcome to Atlanta remix, which did a great job of blending electronic beats with familiar ATL hip hop.
After Archnemesis closed down his set, Wick-It took the stage. There were more people in the building by this point, although I don't know if the population every broke 100. Even still, Wick-It had all of us dancing our asses off. While his set wasn't nearly as colorful as Archnemesis, he more than made up for that by doing a fantastic job of blending genres of songs. I never thought I'd ever hear a mash up of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar" and Dr. Dre's "Still Dre." But Wick-It executed that perfectly.
The Instigator was also great at involving the crowd. As if he wasn't satisfied with just mixing his music, at one point he pulls an electric guitar out of [seemingly] thin air and shreds off a great solo. This is something in the electronic dance scene that needs to happen more. The incorporation of live instruments is really impressive. Wick-It even grabbed the mic for a song and flexed his rapping skills, which were pretty damn good. I'd love to see more of this stuff during future shows of his.
Some of my favorite songs he played that night included Nineties FTW, which is a fantastic mash up of the familiar 90s songs we grew up listening to, and Black Bug, which is an incredible mash up of The Black Keys and Big Boi. Wick-It is definitely an artist to see if he ever comes back into town. Bring a friend, because things are going to get groovy.
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| Wick-It the Instigator shredding |
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