Students and guests took over the floor Thursday night in the first dance pit at the Steve Aoki concert.
Electronic dance music, or EDM, artists Steve Aoki, Gareth Emery and R3hab lit up Breslin Center with multicolored strobe lights.
Steve Aoki visits Breslin Center with first dance pit
The crowd dances to a performance by R3Hab Oct. 10, 2013 at Breslin Center. Roughly 1,300 people came to see Steve Aoki perform along with opening acts by R3hab and Gareth Emery. Khoa Nguyen/The State News
Awaiting fans chanted Aoki’s name until he appeared high up on stage.
Known for crowd surfing, spraying champagne and throwing cake at fans, musician, producer and founder of his own record label, Aoki concluded the night with tunes from his best-known 2012 album “Wonderland,” as well as brand new mixes.
A special pit was planned for students to dance in close proximity to the stage, but it was limited to only about 1,017 people, Russell James, Residence Halls Association, or RHA, director of special events, said.
After Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance at Breslin in March, where the duo asked the crowd with floor seats to move closer to the stage, concerns from the East Lansing fire officials inhibited the students from approaching the singers’ platform.
“The fire marshall and the police department were the initial impediments to having a dance floor,” James said. “But, not only is this the first open-floor concert, it’s the first EDM concert.”
The sold-out general admission included roughly 1,300 attendants, RHA Director of Public Relations Greg Rokisky said. The crowd was filled with both newcomers and those who have seen Aoki’s notorious crowd-surfing techniques in concert before, including communication junior Kelly Gooch.
“I’m most excited for the boat that (Aoki) has,” Gooch said.
RHA and the University Activities Board, or UAB, collaborated to transform Breslin into a dance scene for the techno concert.
“We intended to show that we could really go all out, that RHA and UAB can bring something fun and exciting to the students that we serve,” Rokisky said.
California-native Aoki is best known for his remixes of popular hits from artists including Kanye West, Eminem, Jackson 5 and The All-American Rejects. He annually performs about 200 concerts. Aoki also is the owner and founder of Dim Mak Records and has released solo and collaborative albums.
Gareth Emery played a remix of Martina McBride’s “Concrete Angel” and R3hab remixed “Welcome to the Jungle” getting the crowd on their feet.
Emery is an English producer and DJ — once ranked No. 7 in DJ Magazine’s 2010 top 100 DJs list — and Thursday night was his first time in Michigan.
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R3hab, also known as Fadil El Ghoul, is a Dutch DJ well known in the international dance scene. He has done remixes of songs by Lady Gaga, Calvin Harris and Jennifer Lopez.
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