After seeing Tiesto on the big stage not three days prior, I knew I'd find Paul Oakenfold vastly superior or pathetically inferior to the super-huge European club god.
And while I'm not going to admit that Paul Oakenfold is necessarily a better DJ than Tiesto, I certainly enjoyed his show more.
No contest, Oakenfold ripped the Miller Lite Oasis apart on this obscenely muggy Friday night.
While suffering from a stripped down stage show and, frankly, rapist-esque looks and points at the crowd, his beats just shook the joint. He aptly mixed a few American classics into his set, including Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes, Scar Tissue by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way, among a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting.
Much like Tiesto, he'd build a beat around a common song, whether it from the aforementioned list, or a few that touched on the cheesy, generic female-vocalist-from-Europe verses that plagued Teisto's set on Tuesday.
But the beats...oh, the beats. Oakenfold's drops were about as heavy as I've experienced in recent concert-going memory ("recent" meaning...post-2005). It was clear from the geto-go that I would clearly be adhering to a sober version of Ali G's "dancing like a prick" theory. Pretty much every beat put out by Oakenfold was, well, sweet-ass music to this guy's ears.
Style of music: Oakenfold by a full length over Tiesto.
Oakenfold did score some unwanted super-creepy points with his stage presence, though. He rarely emerged from behind his tables, which wasn't too bad, but when he did, it was as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself. A clap-clap here, and then I'll go to the other side, clap-clap over there, annnnnd, OK, I'm going back behind my tables.
Even creepier was "the point." There are many times when, during a DJ's set, the DJ doesn't have anything to do. The tunes are moving, your next beat is cued up and ready to go, and you've got 30 seconds to kind of...enjoy the moment. Oakenfold had this bad habit of holding onto his knobs for most of that time, and giving the crowd a creepy look. I just couldn't get on board with that -- it only allowed everyone to see how much time he wasted not doing anything. A few times, he'd realize, "Oh crap, I have about 43 seconds left until I actually have to turn these knobs, I'd better do something." So, instead, he'd give that creepy look to the audience again and point. Really awkwardly, just at one random person in the crowd. I think his intention was to point and emote the idea, "Here it comes, you're gonna love this." It ended up making him look like the guy who invented the idea of rape vans.
Style of stage-presence: Oakenfold, if you're into watching a DJ make you feel really awkward, even among a sea of 5,000 people.
Absolute creepiness aside, his set was just really spectacular. For a free stage that wasn't crowded at all on a Friday night, this one gets award for "happy unexpected moment from Summerfest 2012." (See De La Soul 7/9/11 for last year's recipient.)
I will have to upload the videos at a later date when I get back to my "home" computer, my iPad will not allow me to load videos.
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