Kx5 (Kaskade x Deadmau5) Photo Credit: Peter Don
On December 10th, Kaskade and Deadmau5 came together as their duo project, Kx5, to perform their first-ever headlining concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Around 50,000 attendees got to experience incredible visuals, fireworks, drone shows, unreleased tracks, and technical difficulties due to a generator exploding and shutting down power for about 20 minutes. Not only did they break the generator, the Kx5 team shared with us that the duo broke the record as the “largest single-day concert event headlined by an electronic artist ever in North America and the biggest ticketed global headliner dance event of 2022.”
Kaskade (Ryan Raddon) and Deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman) are well-known as their own respective legends in electronic music. This collaboration project has been brewing for over a decade and a half.
Kaskade and Deadmau5 first debuted their collaborative genius back in 2008, dropping the timeless track “I Remember.” Soon after, the two released “Move For Me,” resulting in both tracks hitting number one within a week of one another on Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart.
Earlier this year, Kx5 debuted their first single, “Escape (featuring. Hayla).” The track recently won the Electronic Chill Track Of The Year from BBC Radio1 Dance Awards. The duo also made their debut live as the Kx5 project at EDC Las Vegas 2022.
Since the first single, Kx5 now has a total of five tracks under the Kx5 project.
- “Escape” featuring Hayla
- “Alive” featuring The Moth and The Flame
- “Take Me High”
- “Avalanche” featuring James French
- “When I Talk” with Elderbrook
The LA Coliseum has held iconic acts from the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Prince, and now Kx5.
The Coliseum is a living memorial to all who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War I. The Coliseum was named a national and California historic landmark in 1984. It has held many legendary sports events ranging from Super Bowl, World Series, Summer Olympics, and even home to the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans.
The Kx5 show was part of the “Coliseum Forever” celebration commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the LA venue.
The Kx5 team also shared, “According to Pollstar, the show broke records landing it as the largest single-day concert event headlined by an electronic music artist ever in North America with Billboard confirming Kx5 at the Coliseum as the biggest ticketed global headliner dance event of 2022.”
Getting to the venue
The weather was a bit uncertain, with heavy rains threatening. Luckily, concertgoers only had to deal with an off-and-on drizzle closer to the show’s end.
The drive getting to the venue was surprisingly smooth, with no traffic hiccups. The typical LA traffic and parking mess started about half-a-mile from the venue.
If using a rideshare service is not your go-to, I recommend purchasing parking passes at least a day before the show to ensure your spot at your preferred lot. Additionally, attendees couldn’t purchase parking passes on site after a certain point as the parking capacity had sold out. Those who did not have a parking pass had to find street parking, which is not the easiest around this venue.
When the sun had gone down, the doors opened, and the torch had been lit. Following the torch lighting came the supporting acts of the night: Triple XL, Anna Lunoe, and John Summit.
Triple XL is a respected DJ in the space who is currently mixing for radio station 102.7 KIIS FM. After he warmed up the crowd, Australian DJ and vocalist Anna Lunoe took over to perform her own set. Lunoe has been featured on tracks with artists like Chris Lake, Dillon Francis, Flume, and many more.
The last supporting act before Kx5 getting on stage was John Summit.
John Summit as the opener was a match waiting to happen as his remix of “Escape” grew quickly in popularity. He even gave the crowd a taste of one of his unreleased tracks. John Summit is known to bring energy to a crowd and was the ultimate hypeman leading up to the Kx5 set.
playing a track i finished last week to a crowd of 60k people 😭 pic.twitter.com/bodLIEdCTG
— John Summit (@johnsummit) December 11, 2022
As this was an Insomniac presented event, I had expected significant innovations to be integrated with the show. You could see on stage that the setup would be unique to a Kx5 show.
Throughout the two-hour set, the duo played not only the Kx5 tracks but also their individual iconic tracks. Kaskade came with “Disarm You,” “Room For Happiness” with Skylar Grey, and his latest release, “Dance With Me” with Justus. Deadmau5 dropped his own classics like “Ghosts N Stuff,” “The Veldt,” and a few unreleased tracks.
Technical difficulties became obvious about five minutes after the music and visuals had completely cut out. After about 20 minutes, Deadmau5 and Kaskade come back to the stage and let everyone know that they’re okay and that a generator blew out, causing the power to shut down.
The pause was taken in precaution to ensure no fires once the backup generator was booted up for the remainder of the show.
Deadmau5 joked with the crowd that “somebody’s getting fired tonight” from the power company due to the unexpected power outage.
Kx5 closed out the set with an encore of “Escape,” but this time, Hayla came out on stage to perform the track live.
Throughout the show, 300 drones lit up the sky, flashing track names like “Alive,” configured with a silhouette of California with a heart, the LA Memorial Coliseum, the Kx5 logo and more.
On each end of the stage, separate pods were set up for Kaskade and Deadmau5. The pods could move on a track across the stage, spin 360 degrees, and even rise about ten feet in the air.
At moments, the screen would show that Kaskade and Deadmau5 were on the same pod performing together. Pairing with the innovative stage design, there were frequent fireworks and pyrotechnics released on beat.
Even with the generator blowout, the show was truly one for the books. Seeing two artists I’ve grown up loving perform back to back as a solid unit was electrifying, to say the least.
You can feel the creative detail that was specifically put into the show from the duo. With the drones, lighting, fireworks and more, the experience as a whole was synchronized to the flow of the music set. As a fan, I am eager to catch them live again.
Kaskade x Deadmau5 will perform at Printworks in London, England, in February of 2023. You can also catch the Kx5 project next headlining Ultra Music Festival Miami in March of 2023.
Check out Kx5 tracks on your preferred streaming platform here.