by Connie Kim
I have always been a fan of The Chainsmokers and their music. I’ve been listening to their songs since their first hits, “#SELFIE” and “Kanye,” and haven’t stopped since. Of course, ever since the debut of songs like “Roses” and “Closer,” the DJ duo has become a couple of the most famous musicians in the business.
With that being said, it’s no question that their show appearances and concerts have been in extremely high demand. Nearly every single one of their shows has been sold out, and I know this from personal experience. The Chainsmokers were the special guests for the 2016 New Year’s Eve Celebration in Omnia Nightclub in San Diego, but the moment I Googled for tickets, it was too late. They announced their tour for the summer, and I was excited to see that they were coming to my hometown in Hawaii. But as soon as pre-sale tickets were released, they were gone before I could say “from your roommate back in Boulder.”
So I was stoked when I found out that they were playing in Aspen for the Winter X-Games this year. As soon as I found out about it in September, I didn’t hesitate to book my tickets. After waiting nearly a whole semester, my friends and I gathered in a Chevy Tahoe to make our trip to Aspen. Everyone else was there for the actual X-Game sport events. I’ll be honest when I say that I was purely there for The Chainsmokers and nothing else.
We stood in line for two hours in the windy, nine-degree weather. I’ve never felt colder in my life. It felt like my toes were going to fall off, but I kept telling myself that it was all going to be worth it. The security guard released us into the concert area, and I ran as fast as I could to get front and center. I managed to find a spot right against the interior railing, and we were about four people from the front.
The pushing and shoving were crazy – I mean, I’ve been to several General Admission concerts before, but none like this. The pushing happened every five minutes or so, which swayed the crowd forward and back. My face was being sandwiched between the stranger in front of the stranger behind me and me. It felt like we were almost doing the wave because we were being swayed that much.
The show started with deep bass and a low, ghostly voice singing a slow-motion version of “Closer.” The lights were dim and were elevated as each beat of bass dropped. This set the tone for their performance; it was going to be lit. The two DJ’s walk onto the stage and the crowd goes wild. The Chainsmokers start playing out remixes of their songs like stripper cash; they were not worried about timing or spacing out the songs at all. It went from one song to another to another and then to another; I recognized all of them. “Inside Out” to “#SELFIE,” to “All We Know” to ” Setting Fires.” They even played their most recent release, “Paris,” within the first 30 minutes of the show. Not to mention, they only played like a minute into each of their songs before switching it over, which was a bummer.
From that point on, the music took a different turn. They started featuring music from other EDM artists like Tiesto’s “Spilt” and Mashmellow’s “Alone,” which are two songs that don’t sound anything like The Chainsmoker’s genre, but I didn’t mind – at first.
But then they started continuing with that train until it evolved into hardcore dubstep. Like what? I didn’t go to hear hardcore rock and roll guitar chords with dolphin sex noises. It turned from calm, danceable music with lyrics and words – other than “drop the bass”- to a fist bump, jump-up-and-down fest. I would have stopped dancing, but with the crowd squeezing in so tightly, when they jumped, I jumped without having to move a muscle. I could just stand there, and the people surrounding me would be able to shove me up into their air.
The intense pushing and shoving continued to come in waves. It was literally like a stack of dominoes. The entire crowd would be pushed forward, and then would push back to retaliate. It got so bad to the point where it interrupted the show. The Chainsmokers stopped their music to tell the crowd to stop pushing. There were people under people, and safety was a major issue during the concert. It was dead silent for a good 45 minutes. The Chainsmokers just stood on stage waiting to play another beat. I’ve never been to a so silently awkward concert in my life.
Everyone, including myself, took this opportunity to leave. It was mid-concert, but I was bummed by the dubstep. They weren’t playing their music, and there was an awkward standstill. I grabbed my friend and marched our way towards the exit. While the pushing and shoving continued as we tried to get through the crowd, we found where the source of the intense pushing came from. There was a huge area in the middle of the crowd that was an open area of the ice. All of the compacting of the snow floor turned the floor into a sheet of glass where several people were falling to the ground. I even felt myself trying to get around it. The floor was so slippery, that once you were down, you couldn’t get up; there was nothing for your shoes to grip onto. People fell unexpectedly and naturally grabbed one another trying to prevent the fall. The realization hit me – people weren’t pushing, they were falling.
I saw EMS flashing their lights in the near distance, and I understood what was going on. The entire situation was chaotic. Almost everyone left, and by the time the show got back on, I heard that only half of the crowd remained.
Not only did the concert setting make it feel like a CMU concert, but the wait, the pushing and the frostbite also were not worth it at all. I was disappointed by The Chainsmokers. Now I know they represent a clearly different genre of music, but at least I know. This was my first X-games concert, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Even if the ticket prices seem too good to be true, invest your money into a real concert in an actual venue – it’s not worth the bruises from the crowd.
