Illenium heats the beats at Allegiant Stadium
On a weekend culminating with fireworks, Allegiant Stadium opened with a bang of its own.
Native son 3lau got bodies in motion early, as the crowd — glowing like mobile lava lamps in illuminated Illenium bracelets handed out at the door — files in, dancing in the aisles and the long, winding merch lines.
The stadium floor vibrated like a trampoline as thousands bounced in unison. The sound booming from the stage was almost as big as the room itself, bass levels concussive enough to conjure bubbles
in your Coors Light.
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but I grew up in Vegas,” 3lau bellowed from the stage amid a melodic, yet bottom-heavy rumble that you feel as much as hear.
In a ballet of dancing lights, Illenium emerged in the middle of the arena floor, swinging his fists atop a riser positioned in the center of the crowd, beams of radiance blasting into the rafters.
The music was synced with the audience’s wristbands, resulting in shifting shades of color illuminating the stadium en masse.
The crowd went wild, though they did so to a soundtrack posited more on atmosphere than adrenaline, at least at first: Like
In a ballet of dancing lights, Illenium emerged in the middle of the arena floor, swinging his fists atop a riser positioned in the center of the crowd, beams of radiance blasting into the rafters.
the swirling abstract art images projected on the massive screens above the stage, Illenium is more about setting the mood during the early portion of his show, letting the melodies sink in, blossom, the audience catching its breath before he does his best to knock it right out of them, soon enough.
Come set two, Illenium began picking up the pace as if his tunes had been fired through a particle accelerator. Moving from the riser to the stage, he did his thing amid steady bursts of pyro — waterfalls of sparks, geysers of fire — as if the idea was to set the grand finale of a Fourth of July display to a beat.
His performance became concussed by more dubstep moments, adding a blunt physical dimension to the night. Think about attempting to dance while getting hit by a linebacker. It was kind of like that.
Case in point: During Illenium’s first set, a couple in the front row of the club section chills, reclining in their seats. By set two, he’s gripping the railing, headbanging like he was at a Slayer gig while she’s throwing elbows as if warding off a gargoyle.
As Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, Illenium launched into his third and final set — followed by a brief preview of his forthcoming new album “Fallen Embers.” Though it was 12:20 a.m. at this point and he’d been going hard for a couple hours — save for a pair of 10-minute breaks — things got taken up a notch further still, with a massive wall of flames shooting up from the back of the stadium floor.
Though Illenium isn’t quite the household name outside of EDM circles as Allegiant Stadium’s next headliner, country superstar Garth Brooks, who plays there July 10, the show fit the occasion as an outsized, eye-popping introduction to an outsized, eye-popping venue.