Last Tuesday, Australian electronica wunderkind Harley Streten, better known as Flume, brought his energetic and intelligent beats to the Royale nightclub. For return customers, this set differed very little from previous shows besides a couple of new cuts and a tweaked setlist, but that’s not a negative. Streten has assembled a tight, tuned and unrelentingly entertaining live set that gets better with every visit.
To get the negative out of the way first, the crowd that night was pretty terrible. As the show sold out months before, I assumed the audience would be full of laid back superfans, but instead the main floor was full of strung out or over-aggressive teenagers. It may sound crotchety to complain about messed up youngsters at an EDM show, but when you’re dealing with a performer of this caliber it’s unfortunate being surrounded by biddies and broravers. This set a bad vibe in the air to start, but thankfully didn’t ruin the night.
Boston-area producer Nick Garcia started things off. I unfortunately missed his set, but it was by all accounts a good mix of hip hop and house that got the early arrivals warmed up. At around 9:30, Trippy Turtle (the alter-ego of of Norwegian producer Lido) took over on the decks. TT’s set had the perfect energy to lead into Flume- a blend of smooth hip-hop and banging club tracks. The influence of label-mate Cashmere Cat was on show here as silky smooth synths lulled the audience into a comfortable groove before taking them off guard with heavy (but never overbearing) trap drops. With many talking about Lido/TT in similar breaths as Flume was back in 2012, he seems poised to make a big break over the next year and this set was good evidence of his ability to occupy a similar space.
At around 10:30, Flume took the stage to wild applause. For those unaware, Streten reproduces all of his tracks live through a mix of clip launching, key work and mild percussion. The talent that he is, he didn’t miss a beat through the entire show. Everything had the same bombast and tightness as it did on the album with a few deviations to keep things interesting. The changes themselves were very familiar from previous sets though. In fact, with the exception of some new hip-hop verses thrown over songs (most notably the exciting addition of Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” to his remix of Ta-Ku’s “Higher”) Streten’s bag of tricks remained mostly unchanged from the last time I saw him. I took this as a sign of the precise preparation of the set though- everything was tuned to elicit the audience reaction Streten wanted throughout the set, and there was never a dragging moment.
The setlist was mostly familiar too, focused almost entirely on Flume’s album tracks and remixes. Opening with the dazzling “Sintra,” he played through the most popular album cuts including “Holding On,” “Insane” and “More Than You Thought.” Other highlights included his side project What So Not’s remix of Major Lazer’s “Get Free,” and his own showstopping rework of Lorde’s “Tennis Court.” Near the end of his set, Streten also surprised the audience with a couple of new cuts, most notably a glitchy new banger. While a notable departure from his previous work, it had the Flume’s signature craft and intelligence, and got me very excited for his upcoming releases.
The visual elements of the set remained as stunning as ever. Centered around the awesome infinity prism (an element Zeds Dead also used in their most recent tour) the spectacle blended swooping lights with psychedelic visuals. From the neon cityscape that accompanied “On Top” to an intensely trippy makeout scene during his remix of “You and Me,” all the videos felt both unique and perfectly fitted to their tracks. Again, none of these were new to the set and many are available as music videos on YouTube, but they take on a new life in the live context. Mixed with Streten’s gracious yet energetic stage presence, this was a set that was nearly as visually appealing as it was sonically.
Flume’s excellent performance ability still stands as a shining example of what live electronic music should aspire to. Delivering every song that fans would want, playing live rather than lazily DJ’ing and adding visual elements that are always stimulating but never over the top, it’s a wonderful blend of danceability and intelligence. While I hope that the next album (rumored to debut by the end of the year) brings a new approach, or at least a restructuring of the show, catching this performance again was a real treat.
