Bassnectar kicked off the first night of his Immersive Music Tour in Oakland last Friday the 19th with support from Andreilein (formerly Heyoka) and Koan Sound. His set was nothing short a bass-powered frenzy of headbanging to his signature “Amorphous music,” covering everything from heavy dubstep, drum and bass, 808, trap, hip-hop influences, and some sounds that can best be described by a robot puking out ones and zeros. Being a longtime Bassnectar fan and frequent concert goer, I found this to be one of his most hyped up and concise sets to date. Nectar has recently taken a step into the realm of minimal trap and 808 making sets of his at Coachella and Ultra this year surprisingly downbeat. This tour harkened back to 2011 sets of his where bangers like “Wildstyle” and “Bass Head” relentlessly melted faces all night long. This tour Bassnectar has really brought his more high energy bass music back to the forefront with a concise two-hour set that hardly settled down to more than a medium level of womp the whole show. Some memorable high-energy moments came with “Teleport Massive,” “Freestyle,” “Heads up,” and a surprisingly heavy drop of his new Nina Simone remix and much more.
The visuals involved in the show played hugely into this tour’s theme of Immersive Music and featured some of the best artistic work out of the Bassnectar crew I’ve seen to date. One notable highlight was a 50 ft high Neo and Morpheus kung-fu battle from “The Matrix” — that definitely brought the visual (as well as the bass) to yo face.
