Zeds Dead Performance Analysis

Throughout Zeds Dead’s performance at Ritchie Coliseum, another sense was thoroughly engaged in addition to the auditory element of lyrics and synthetic instrumentals: vision. Zeds Dead performance had several marked features of visuals that exemplified the sensualistic nature of electronic dance music. Accordingly, “…such syntheses and modulations are carried out in the ‘laboratory’ of the club, where in most cases the pitch-black darkness is impregnated by techno music, a few lights, the occasional strobe and artifcial smoke.” (Vitos, 2). To typify this characteristic of EDM, Zeds Dead included many multicolored beams of light rotating over the cloud and flashing lights typically when the beat dropped, in an otherwise dark room. Additionally, there were designed visuals in the background, typically of a “trippy” rotating vortex,
First, the fact that the main, bright vortex visuals were behind Hooks and DC demonstrated how they have created a separate stage identity through anonymity. Because the visuals were so bright behind them, the audience could only see the silhouettes of Hooks and DC. Even from the front row, I could barely tell what they were wearing. Additionally, they were on the top, back level of the stage, which was a sharp contrast from the preceding, more interactive DJs who were on the lower front level, closer to the audience. These visual elements separated them from the audience, providing them with a sort of “alter ego”. While they were not wearing masks or headgear like deadmau5 and Daft Punk do, the fact that they were distant and silhouetted equipped Zeds Dead with a stage identity. Even the names that they go by in interviews, Hooks and DC, are not even their real names. Therefore, the visual aspects of the performance also complemented the more anonymous stage identity of Zeds