The guy next to me was a fratboy meathead sporting a neon green tank-top and a stupid grin. The kid on my other side was a grade-school raver who did his “woo”-ing through braces. I was definitely the only denizen in a Sonic Youth shirt, but AVICII knows no bounds. The 23-year-old Swedish stadium-house DJ took his seat at the top of a giant white-washed plastic head, and pressed play on his laptop. The party started. AVICII makes big loud obnoxious rave, no subtlety or sarcasm; the elder ACL-ers would probably scoff or mourn the day. It probably didn’t help that he opened with a fanged “Baba O’Riley” remix. Instead of musicianship, he relied on endless CGI psychedelics projected on his monument. I suppose you need a distraction when the set has been digitally removed from any variables. It was not live music; it was theater, one incredibly popular DJ treating a legion of fans to 75 minutes of hyperkinetic energy. You could call him a phony, but I call it love, because when “Silhouettes” settles into its sunset groove, that’s all I can think of.
This article appears in October 19 • 2012.