All copy by Dagny Blomster from Oddyssea
Photos by Crystal Yuen from Oddyssea
The fame of an EDM artist has a pretty short life expectancy due to the quickly-evolving nature of the scene. It’s hard to come by a jockey who can hold their ground and keep up with the trends. If they do master the art of a music chameleon, the fans follow and take pride in watching them grow into a completely different (but undeniably brilliant) artist.
Lo and behold, Dillon Francis has beautifully conquered this by producing the right tracks at the right time. His versatility makes him an interesting artist to watch. Last year Francis played at Boston’s Paradise Club, where he had the crowd screaming “I pledge allegiance to Dillon Francis and everyone else can go fuck themselves.”
That loyalty was EASILY traceable at his show last night at the House of Blues in Boston. Kids with half-melted faces—thanks to opener Oliver– were desperately squirming their way to the edge of the stage for Francis’s arrival. It wasn’t hard to tell that these were the same patrons from last year.
He’s gone from throwing down moombahton tracks like “Masta Blasta” and “IDGAFOS” (which, I mind you, allowed him to be the first moombahton artist to reach number one on beatport) to completely tricking out his fans with ridiculous trap beats all in a two-year span. Last night, Francis kept the playlist completely unique, rebirthing his old tracks into the grimiest trap that has ever blasted through the hall of HOB Boston.
I mean, who does that? Let me re-phrase: who CAN do that? He is king of relevancy, being able to switch up genres and release quality tracks left and right. Just peep at his SoundCloud.
The show’s energy was outrageous and so contagious that the bartenders and bouncers were even bobbing to the beats. I love that he kept moombahton and sprinkled dubstep wobbles in his two-hour set. Honestly, it felt like four hours, but only due to the workout each attendee recieved. He remixed a lot of grade A meat, including tracks by Porter Robinson, A-Trak, Dada Life, and even dropped his remix of Justin Timberlake’s new single, “Suit & Tie”. Running JT on the trap? Mother may I.
Francis bid adieu to the geeked-up crowd at the stroke of midnight, but– just as any faithful audience would do—they chanted “Dillon” till he gave into their demands for an encore. He played the new single, “Messages.” After that final track, everyone filed out of the hall enchantingly disoriented.
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He has won the hearts of Mass. Boston will be closely following the multi-genred genius that is Dillon Francis
