Diplo debuts rebuilt U.S. Cellular stage
It made a kind of sense for Diplo to put on his DJ hat (and Brewers cap) to present the inaugural show on the rebuilt U.S. Cellular Connection Stage Friday night, less than a week before it would host its first Summerfest bands.
Summerfest, after all, has spent decades lining up so many musical acts for its annual schedule that the most stridently cynical music fan could find something among them — whereas a DJ can spend an entire set looking for beats that will get everyone moving, even if not everyone is moving to the same rhythm at the same time.
With some chilling winds and a temperature staying around 62 degrees, the atmosphere by the lake at Maier Festival Park encouraged more shivering than dancing, and might have kept the crowd from being more than a minor overflow beyond the mostly full benches and tables.
Diplo did churn that crowd into some sort of motion, with sounds that ranged from samples of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” — which itself sampled Major Lazer, one of Diplo’s projects — to possible simulacra of a saxophone bleat and a referee’s whistle.
He used bass drops that landed like punches to the solar plexus, loops of noise that often pummeled the ears into submission, and various, admittedly standard and overused onstage exhortations to jump up and down, to get one’s hands into the air and to do jumping jacks.
And he used visuals that included smoke machines with bursts regularly timed to the beats, flashing spotlights meant to duplicate the seductive disorientation of a dance club and big-screen, usually black-and-white graphic hypnosis. Plus, a line drawing of a diplodocus, the dinosaur from which Diplo takes his name.
The new version of the U.S. Cellular Connection Stage — in roughly the same spot as the old version on the Summerfest grounds — assisted his efforts.
Its LED video screen — 27 feet wide and, apparently, the largest such screen at Summerfest now — doubled the hypnotic possibilities of Diplo’s imagery. The outside of the stage — angular, cream-colored, with resemblances to large tiling — focused the eye’s attention on the performer, framing him within unobtrusively sharp lines.
Besides having a stronger aesthetic design than the previous Connection Stage, the new version is also clearly larger and has modern technology, such as the screen and the lighting setup, more integrated into its overall look.
The sound quality was crisp on even the deepest of those bass drops.
There was only so much the stage could do for the performer, though.
It couldn’t make Diplo a more active presence. That might have been a genre or DJ thing, or it might have been the man himself, but his own jumping jacks and regular jumps weren’t especially energetic, and he certainly didn’t have any moment as tangibly memorable as Steve Aoki’s tossing cake into the crowd.
Nor could the stage goad Diplo to dip further into his own credits. As a creator, he’s been part of Jack Ü (with Skrillex) and the aforementioned Major Lazer.
As a producer, he’s worked with Madonna, Britney Spears, the likewise aforementioned Beyoncé and the Weeknd. Hearing more or any of that would have beaten tolerating his use of Lil Pump’s “Gucci Gang.”
Still, with the majority of the crowd on his side, and despite the temperatures, Diplo took the opportunity to break in a new venue as an honor.
His DJ hat fit the occasion well, if not snugly enough.