For his current tour, Deadmau5 called upon the designers of Daft Punk’s iconic pyramid to create his stage. Again like Daft Punk, he chose to debut this new rig during a headline slot at the Coachella festival’s Sahara tent. Unlike Daft Punk, however, he took his show beyond music festivals and large arenas, touring local venues across the UK and the United States. Last Wednesday this show rolled into Boston for the first of two sold-out shows. Needless to say the crew at mediocre music blog were there in force. Read on for a full setlist as well as photos, videos, and our lasting impressions of what has been the most hyped live electronic show since Alive 2007.

One of the problems associated with having a visual display of this magnitude is that the amount of work that goes into catering the visuals towards specific songs makes it unfeasible to create a truly unique show each night. This is why Daft ended up playing the same tracks in the same order throughout their Alive 2007 tour, and it seems as though that is the direction in which Deadmau5 is heading. He has been using this tour to test some new material off his upcoming album, however, and from what I’ve seen so far these songs come in and out of rotation. At this year’s WMC in Miami, for instance, he dropped his own dubstep (dub5tep?) track to mixed reviews. On Wednesday I believe the setlist was along these lines:

Some Chords
Sofi Needs a Ladder
Cthulhu Sleeps
The Reward is Cheese
Hard Selection
Ghosts’n'Stuff / Moar Ghosts’n'Stuff
Sometimes Things Get Complicated
Strobe
I Said
I Remember vs. FML
Moonlight Sonata Esque
Not Exactly 2010 (Ghost in the Shell Remix)
Arguru
He came out and played an encore which sounded to me like a deconstructed version of “Strobe” but may well have been the sleeping pills track he teased on his soundcloud account a couple of months ago. This was largely the same set I witnessed back at Coachella. One major difference was the giant LED mouse-head showed only a green outline, the full face  that started talking during “Sometimes Things Get Complicated” back at Coachella stayed black during the whole show. My own theory is that the mask he was using was the stand-in he mentioned during this behind the mask interview and that the real one was either broken or he’s scrapped it altogether (possibly due to safety concerns).

Nevertheless the show was still a visual spectacle, and the House of Blues audio system held up its end of the bargain too. The crowd, many of whom wearing glow-stick mau5 ears ($5 each!?) couldn’t have been more into it. Tickets for the show were going for close to $100 on craigslist on Wednesday, giving you some idea of the demand to witness this thing. Checkout the videos below a better idea of levels of enthusiasm and energy contained in the building.

To me, though, deadmau5 still has a way to go before his performances are on Daft Punk’s level. Part of this, I believe, is due to over exposure. He is in many ways the antithesis of the french robots, who are never photographed, never interviewed, and exist in a total media vacuum. Deadmau5 on the other hand has close to a million twitter followers, conducts live streams of himself in the studio and is an active presence on many internet forums. This accessibility certainly aided his meteoric rise to stardom, but now is detracting from his allure. The morning of this concert, he posted to his 750,000 facebook fans:

mission accomplished.  well, its been nearly a decade of making music now. Lots of adventures and misadventures have been had, friends gained and lost, and i think i’ve reached my ultimate goal… i have more haters than tiesto. what now? Now it’s time to get off facebook, lay off the tweets, and into the studio. Time for me to pipe down and get back to doing what i love most; making music.

Another important lesson from Daft? Perhaps, either way we think it’s a great call. We’re looking forward to the new material.

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