Groove in DowntownSet list
1- Choice
Club Set
2- Free spirit (with Lyiah)
3- Livin’ da Life
4- I Remember (Deadmau5 Dub Remix)
5- Substitute Love
Pop / Hip Hop Set
6- Dope (with Lyiah)
7- The Hollywood star (with Lyiah)
8- Smoke in the sky
9- Without a cause (with Kidd Amaze)
10- Black roster (with Kidd Amaze)
11- Can I exist? (with Kidd Amaze)
12- After Party
Groove in Downtown is a musical and art project formed by Drake Anton Zaslavsky (aka mISTER_b) and vocalist Nate Alexander; they’ve been touring for months now and gathering widespread acclaim by their versatile sets and stunning visual concepts. What the crowd will witness in this festival is a one-hour set of their two hour long set on the road.
There’s a large video projection build up I the stage, it is part of the full size led screen that Groove In Downtown carry on their world tour. The has a cabin with two spots, where Drake and Nate stays while they’re playing the DJ set of their concert, but also there’s a moment where this cabin is half opened where the hip hop and pop tracks of the set are played in a more singer concert vibe.
Before the concert starts, a countdown starts on the led screen, it counts down from 10 to 9 as the melodies of the song “choice” are playing. As it gets on number one, the whole stage and led screens are lighted up bright and then it gets dark, no sound at all, except the atmospheric background of the song, Nate starts to sing the first lines of the track with his synthetized voice and so a vide of a rush street at night begins to be played. The stage sort of is lighted revealing Nate and Drake, inside the cabin on the stage. The crowd goes insane and the intimism and dark song is being performed. The lights of the video are hypnotic, the crowd cannot realize they’re about to enter in a clubber field.
Right after “choice” is finished, Drake and Nate work on the turntable and the song “Free Spirit” starts, mixed with the final beats of “Choice” introducing the Club Set of their concert. The video changed to show Liyah in Neon clothes dancing in the middle of the rush street, it is very stylized; the streetlights are projected to the outside of the video, accompanying Liyah there are a lot of clones of herself, but they don’t have human textures, they’re actually made of lights as well. Coming in the cabin with the Drake and Nate, appears Liyah holding a microphone and singing the song lines, she is quickly lighted so the crowd can realize that it’s a live vocal performance, she remain inside the cabin with the boys, because the performance is all about the visual concept. The song is a tech house influenced track with lots of elements and turntable effects. Soon after the end of “Freedom” during the final drum sequence Drake introduces the groove deep house “Livin’ da life”, Nate with his robotic voice singing the short and fast verse of the song, he keeps repeating it throughout the e6 minutes of the track. The video projection now changed to a more nightclub-oriented concept, with lasers and cubic forms, different tones of green and blue, Nate and Drake seem to be enjoying themselves while executing the track, they’re cheering with the crowd bouncing their hands making the good vibe of the moment increases. The track is incredibly groove and no one at the crowd seem to be standing but bouncing and dancing.
Keeping the same drum sequence Drake and Nate now introduces another track, from another DJ called Deadmau5, the song “I remember” a classic club track from 00’s totally remixed into a new disco track with some influences of deep house. The moment the crowd recognized the hit single, they started to cheer loud and dance to the incredibly infectious beats. As for the video projection, the night club geometric forms continue, but now they took form of people dancing, girls flipping their hairs and men taking drinks, the lights now are in a purple tone, keeping the visuals dim and warming just like the beats.
Mixing with “I Remember” comes “Substitute Love” the new disco track of the duo presented on their debut album. This track has been experiencing some wide reception in the set of a variety of underground DJs, it already received at least twenty remixes of different genres in the electronic music, due to the strong club airplay. The song is expected to be released as an official single, and right before Drake and Nate drop the characteristic synth beat, they have a little chat with the crowd, even though the drum sequence is still in the background of their chat.
Drake: Hey Northwest!Nate: Are you enjoying Northwest?Drake: This next track is our brand new single, so take a listen!Once they dropped the synth beats and later the ska-guitar riff of the track, the crowd went crazy, everyone started to jump. The human forms of the video projection changed to flowers, and the lights changed to red and yellow, the flowers were sprouting in the face of the crowd making it look like they would hit them at any time. During the first chorus, fireworks explodes above the crowd and everyone screams and shouts to the intensity of the set. Certainly, this song is a remarkable club bang; Nate sings it live, with a lot of swag and confidence. When it ends, the stage got dark and the sound ceased, it was time to change the segment of the concert.
Again, another video introduces the second segment of the concert, this time the concept art created by Ernest will take the space, this introduction video shows Ernest creating one of his painting in a wall in the streets of New York. He is painting Nate and Drake with the boy of their video for “Can I Exist”, while he paints it, a classical piano track plays. One minute after, the stage lights up revealing Liyah in the center of it, while Drake still on the cabin behind her in time drop the beats for “Dope”.
The electropop song has some R&B influence thanks to Liyah singing. The performance is very energetic and Liyah seem to have a lot of fun during the execution of the single. The crowd singalong with her, which makes her even more excited towards her performance. The video show Liyah painted on the same wall that Ernest was painting in the introduction video, however she is walking through the wall, in the long street at some neighbor in New York.
Coming after, Nate hits the stage with Liyah and they both greet the crowd.
Nate: So now we have a lot of hip hop tracks for y’allLiyah: Thank you so much for the love Northwest, these two boys deserve it!Nate: Wow, you deserve it too Liyah… love ya“The Hollywood star” beings to be played, Nate and Liyah share the vocals for this performance, they walk through the stage, Nate uses sunglasses, but he’s having such a goodtime performing with the hip hop singer. They improvises some dance steps while singing the song, the lights are bright and in the video projection there’s another Ernest painting, this time around it shows a lot of past Hollywood starts such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Michael dancing to the beats of the track. The ironic tone on both singers voice makes all the difference during the performance, and obviously the reaction of the crowd helps even more with the performance.
Following the next performance, Liyah left the stage so Nate performed the track “Smoke in the sky” alone. The video game vibe of the track was well used on the video projection, it was showing a version of Mario Bro’s, but instead of having Mario, it had Drake and Nate in pixels, they’re stepping on trashes and garbage and they’re destroying chimneys, obviously something closer to the theme of the track. Nate is has the swag, despite we thought that he would totally take an acoustic guitar to sing an acoustic set, we are totally wrong with his stage presence, or at least that’s what he’s doing in Groove in Downtown, he even has some styled dance steps. His singing is warm and breathy, but he shows off some attitude through it.
After “Smoke in the sky”, the video game film showing in the led screen shows the two heros fighting the boss of the level. The lights of the stage were shut off so only the video projection was turned on, the music changed to the original Mario Bro’s tune, Drake and Nate as characters of the video game, trying to defeat a big ball of pollution, but they seem to be weak, that’s when another character appears, which comes to be Kidd Amaze. The crowd recognizes the character and they cheer for it. When all of the three characters defeated the boss of the level, the lights were turn on the stage revealing Kidd and Nate with their mics on hands. Drake dropped the beats for “Without a Cause”.
The reception for the number one single was insane, the crowd screamed, shout, and put their fists to the sky, while Nate and Kidd performed the track. Kidd didn’t changed his rap in this track, he kept the same lines, probably because he heard the crowd singing along with him, every fast word he was rapping. The video projection took another shift, now showing several kids of different ethnicities, singing the song lines, the video is real impacting and this performance is a highlight on the set list of Groove In Downtown, perhaps the stage presence of Kidd brought an enormous amount of attitude to the performance. After this performance. Nate introduced Kidd to the crowd.
Nate: Ladies and gentleman, give it up for KIDD AMAZE!Kidd: yo, yo whats up everyone!Nate: So glad to have you here Kidd, thank you so much.Kidd: My pleasure!Drake dropped the beats for “Black Roster”. The crowd screamed louder, because Kidd didn’t leave the stage, he was going to rap in this song too. The original version of this track has Matt Young, but for this performance, Kidd took the control of the rapping verses, the first rap he performed the original lyrics, for the second strophe he improvised. His skills are impressive, he managed to rhyme and keep the theme of the track. Nate and Drake were surprised at his ability; the crowd were even louder than they were. As for the visual concept of this performance, it showed some stylized historic figures of power and failure like Hitler, Mussolini and other politician and military characters who abused of power and money to become dictatorships. Visual effects deform their faces.
The next track was another hit single called “Can I exist?”, Kidd stayed in the stage for the benefit of the crowd. Nate sings the first strophe and the choruses of this track while Kidd sung the second strophe and the last strophe of the track, which are raps. He again, freestyled half of the track, he used some of the original rhymes, but he added his own rhymes as well. During the choruses of the track, the crowd sung along with Nate, they know this song so well, besides the performance of “Without a Cause” this was the closest intimate performance of the night, the connection between Groove in Downtown, Kidd Amaze and their fans, is incredibly awesome to watch. For the video projection, the original music video for this track was playing, with a little variation of scenes. Ending the performance, Kidd gives an evil laugh just like in the original track, he then greeted Nate and Drake, wave a goodbye and peace sign to the crowd and left the stage. Before the last track of the night, Nate thanked the crowd and join Drake in the cabin once again.
Nate: We are so glad to be performing for you Northwest, thank you so much for the love! Peace!Drake started playing the last song of the night, “After Party”, on the led screen, footages of Drake and Nate world tour backstage, photos with famous people, with their beloved ones and their families made a familiar vibe for the performance. Quite a beautiful and harmonic way to finish the energetic performance they gave. While the song was reaching the end, Drake increased its tempo, the lights got frenetic just like the video playing on the led screens. When It was loud and fast, all the lights were white, Nate and Drake raised their arms waved goodbye to the crowd and the whole stage went dark. The sound ceased and the performance was over.
