If you celebrated Halloween weekend in Miami, you were at the Masquerade Motel. If you didn’t, I’m sorry for your mishap.
Seriously though, Saturday night was wild, to say the least. Welcomed by Patrick M., Cedric Gervais, AN21 and The Brazilian Girls, Swedish House Mafia brought Miami an October taste of what the Winter Music Conference is all about: rowdy behavior and more than fantastic music.
Dressed up from head to toe in costume, house/electro enthusiasts fled to Mid-town to discover a 65,000 square feet tent built exclusively for the affair. Starting at 3 p.m., the doors opened and thousands of young adults piled in to escape reality and do their ears a little favor.
After hours and hours of body shaking, Swedish House Mafia finally rolled up ready to party. The lights began uncontrollably flashing, everyone screamed and BOOM, freshly squeezed beats were dropped. From there, nutty activity occurred and SHM was bringing along quite the show. As Axwell said, “We’re here for the fun. We started off as individual DJs, grew successful and came together to start a phenomenon.” And at10 o’clock, that is exactly what they were doing. While taking photos of the DJ trio on stage, it was apparent “fun” was prevailing among the crowd — SHM released the animal within the human.
“I love playing in America. Since house/electro isn’t as commonly spun here, the crowd is so much more excited than in other parts of the world,” said AN21, as we conversed backstage.
As the night continued, Miami danced harder and harder while SHM mixed their new album, “Until One,” with their older stuff. When their production came to a halt, SHM thanked the audience, securing the fact that the DJ trio doesn’t have to worry about the usual complaint in the house scene: not having personality on stage. SHM fully engaged the crowd, bringing thousands of young adults into pure happiness throughout the show.
“It was the best night of my 21 years”, said Vanessa Manzon of Miami.
As they spoke a few last remarks to the crowd and took their swag off stage, I met Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso back in their tent where it became clear their friendly stage presence isn’t just a front. Though sweat dripped from their body and the words “exhausted, beat, dead” came from their mouths, SHM still managed to sit down with me and say a few important words: “What you see on stage is what you get,” said Ingrosso, “but if you really want to know us well, watch our documentary coming out the end of November.”
“But for now, I’m hungry and would love either American steak or fish,” Axwell added in. “They really have the best.”
