You don’t need to be an expert to know that The Chainsmokers, who performed Saturday night on McDonough Field to close Dooley’s Week, have made some of today’s biggest hits. Their personalities, catchy pop-crossover productions and endless features of female vocalists, like Daya and ROZES, have fans eagerly anticipating each song The Chainsmokers pump out every few months.
The 45 degree weather and late start at 9:30 p.m. didn’t dampen the energy of The Chainsmokers’ performance. Fresh off their winter North American Friend Zone Tour, The Chainsmokers used LED screen visuals to project rejection text messages and neon hashtags, which reminded me more of their “#SELFIE” era, oddly contrasting with their newer aesthetic of muted paintings and simplistic box logos.
The Chainsmokers puffed into existence three years ago in New York City when mutual friends brought Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall together. Their first big break was the song “#SELFIE,” in which a woman narrates a night out. With this song, The Chainsmokers simultaneously celebrated and made fun of millennial selfie culture. The song became a worldwide phenomenon and landed them a deal with Disruptor Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment.
The Chainsmokers achieved mainstream success when they released their single “Roses” in June 2015. The song, with a sound influenced by singer Taylor Swift and producer Max Martin as said in an interview with Idolator, is their most popular song to date, with more than 250 million streams on Spotify (at the time of this article) and a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The Chainsmokers’ set consisted of a mix of original songs, remixes of popular songs and traditional EDM songs. They changed the final drop of a majority of other performers’ remixed songs, which made old, familiar songs sound new and exciting. Their own hits like “Roses,” “Kanye” and “Split (Only U)”, a collaboration with Tiësto, got the biggest reactions from the crowd, as evidenced by the sudden increase in people recording Snapchat videos. The crowd sang along to every word of their newest songs, like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Inside Out,” even though they were both released less than two weeks ago.
The biggest surprises for me were the remix of blink-182, twenty one pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Coldplay, which turned the crowd into a sea of swaying iPhone lights. The nod to alternative music is something I never expected to hear at an EDM concert, but something that created an electrifying atmosphere.
The energy and passion the duo had was reciprocated by the crowd. Not only was the entire crowd jumping and pumping their fists, but The Chainsmokers also spent the entire night jumping onto the stage off of a raised stage while they sang along with us to their songs. The Chainsmokers’ dedication to their fans, paired with their ability to discover and create trends, will definitely push them to play for bigger crowds in coming years.
