There is something special about going to a club to see an artist perform. It’s usually much more intimate than a festival or most other venues within a city. When you travel to see an artist, you have to find your way there, trying to figure out the city as you go. As it was my first time in New York City, all applied to me, though thankfully I had a few friends who knew at least a little more than I did.
We arrived at The Melrose Ballroom at about 10:45pm, hoping to see friends of ours that went on around 11:30. The line was long so we assumed the club was pretty packed. As we waited to be ID’d, we realized that the line was hardly moving, only a few feet every 10 minutes. As the time slot for our friends ticked nearer we began to get impatient. A promoter came by, shouting to the crowd that anyone could pay $20 and be shown straight to the front of the line. No one seemed to keen on the idea of spending an extra $20 to move up when the line should have been moving.
What became apparent as we waited was that the girls in front of us had absolutely no idea what type of music they were about to hear. They continually talked about hating EDM and loving rap music; going so far as to rap a few verses they could have easily made up. By this time we could see the bouncers checking ID’s, though it really consisted of them checking the ID and sending the person to wait in another line to get in. It was nearly midnight at this point. We waited longer, finally getting under the weakest heat lamps to ever exist, and we started talking to a “DJ” who was standing in front of us. Obviously not realizing we write about EDM daily and know the scene fairly well, he explained to us his views on DJing, trying to make it big, and his favorite artist, Hardwell, being absolutely deserving of his #1 DJ ranking. We kept our opinions to ourselves on that one.
Close to 12:15-12:30 we saw a side door open and our friends bring their gear out of the club. We had missed their set because we were still standing in line, having just been ID’d. It was incredible how long the line was taking. The bouncers kept yelling at promoters to stop bringing people to the front of the line because it continually screwed up the order of things and people were obviously not taking it too kindly, us included. We had reached the second of the lines, waiting to be patted down and head inside.
Another 20 minutes went by and FINALLY we went through the doors to get inside. I was shocked. The dance floor was hardly packed, maybe 60% capacity. I understand the need to keep the club from being too crowded with fire codes and all but with more people getting in the door, the more drinks they will buy and the more tickets you have sold. It was absolutely ridiculous. To make matters worse, I was sick and not feeling remotely well, but the club was so sparsely populated, I kept my coat, scarf, and hat on the entire time. Not once feeling hot enough to remove them, that’s is an embarrassment.
We came for the music, and though we didn’t get to see our friends perform, we wanted to stay and see if we could meet up to talk and apologize. We did find out very quickly that the 12-year old DJ, Aiden Jude would be performing. It was nearly 1am at this point, but to be fair, we wanted to give him a chance before we wrote him off.
It became apparent very quickly that he was doing the absolute minimum amount of work on his decks to keep the music going. I can’t say I have listened to him before, so I’m not positive if there were any original tracks played, but from the sound of it, it was mostly top 40 hits. There is nothing wrong with playing popular music, mixing the songs and playing some of the biggest hits of the day, but when that is what most of the set consists of, I wouldn’t pay the money to see that at a show. I could just put in headphones and hear better transitions. There were many points where someone from the side of the stage would come up to the decks and begin changing things while Aiden stood there and looked on, awestruck at how the music was changing.
He would talk into the mic and unfortunately for him, you could not really hear what he was saying because it matched the higher frequencies of the music too well. There was a point in his set, near the end, where Aiden walked out in front of the stage, yelling into the mic for the crowd to do something. At this point the music cut off and we finally heard what he sounded like. He stood there confused and looked behind him as two people from the side of the stage came over to his rescue and fixed something to get the music to start playing again. To be clear, Aiden did absolutely nothing to help them resolve the problem but stand there wondering what happened. In all of the shows I have ever seen, top tier artists or those just beginning, I have never seen someone look so helpless to navigate a problem they should certainly know how to fix. I lost all respect for Aiden Jude as a DJ/producer in that moment, wondering if they put him on stage because he is 12, not because he has actual talent behind the decks.
We were able to meet up with our friends playing earlier and talk to them, seeing how they did and discussing what we were seeing. By this time Aiden Jude had left the stage and Helicopter Showdown had come on. Their set was much more practiced with both members playing the decks and getting on the mic. The transitions were smoother and the crowd was certainly more into their set than what we had seen thus far. We stayed for most of the set, but because I was sick and the music was loud, we decided to leave a little earlier than closing after saying goodbye to our friends.
The Melrose Ballroom apparently has not been around that long, but I was not impressed by how the promoters chose to let guests in and run the line outside, especially given that it was well below freezing that night. Waiting an hour and a half in line was ridiculous, I waited less time to get into EDC Las Vegas and there were 100,000 people getting in. I lost all respect for the young DJ Aiden Jude when he seemed bewildered that his set had gone awry and he needed help from the side of the stage to not only fix the problem, but keep the set on track at multiple points during it. Overall, I’m happy I made the trip out to New York City, but not because of the music I heard, but the few people I was able to meet.