Zach and Dylan, also known as Zeds Dead, came rolling into Burlington, Vermont last weekend to interrupt a quiet Sunday night with a plethora of bass music for a sold out show.
Hard weathered from their Living Dead Tour, the gang has been blowing the roofs off venues and selling out shows non-stop across the country. Their crew also includes one of the forerunners of bass music in the west, DJ Xi from Toronto, as well as the one and only Omar Linx who has been a long time friend of Zeds Dead, and can be heard rapping over their beats on their studio music as well as at their shows.
Click through to read more about this awesome night and DL tracks from Zeds and Omar Linx!
The show started off with a great set from local DJ Disco Phantom. Phantom’s set was fine-tuned and prepared the crowd perfectly for XI’s arrival on the vinyls. Xi’s set (real name Christian Andersen) consisted of heavy UK bass music, his combination of melodic synths, low bass-lines, properly timed horns and some well placed wobble effects give his sounds an eerie deep yet energetic feel that some have defined as “Space Garage”. Selecting from contemporary to classic dubstep Andersen really did a terrific job setting the stage for the head lining act, but allowing Zach and Dylan to really set the place on fire.
After some dramatic pauses and some light effects, Zeds Dead mounted the stage and opened up with one of their signature tunes “White Satin”, a classic hard-hitting dubstep tune with samples from the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” which many people can relate to. They transitioned from this song into Caspa’s remix of “Bababa (Hangover)” by Buraka Som Sistema and carried out the night with similar fashion with Dubstep songs and many other genres from Moombahton, Progressive House and even some straight up Hip Hop. The duo from Toronto are able to draw a crowd from high schoolers all the way up to the old school electronic aficionados. Inspired by Hip Hop, Zeds Dead have been touring with their long time friend Omar Linx who was present at Sunday’s show. Omar came on stage to rap over a few different tracks and much to my surprise, it fit quite nicely. Omar’s raspy voice and deep lyrics flows very well with Zeds Dead’s heavy bassline and somber samples, his live performance is indistinguishable from studio recordings and really puts the cherry on the cake for the Living Dead tour.
Zach and Dylan have become friends of mine since their last show here and they were explaining to me that they had a terrific light set up they have been touring with, but due to a flat on their trailer it did not make it to Burlington. It is a shame that we could not witness the set up but from what they described to me and what you can see in their Chicago video it is quite the set up and certainly would add a terrific detail to their show.
Zeds Dead have been consistent in delivering very entertaining shows and have been on the constant upswing in popularity. The duo will be continuing their tour in New Orleans in a few days but hopefully they will make it up to Burlington again.
Below you can find links to Xi’s music on his myspace page as well as some must have Zeds Dead tracks as well as a few by Omar Linx.