R3hab Live Review

R3hab Live Review | Firestone Live Entered R3hab For Good | Ignition at Venue 578 | October 23 2014

by • October 28, 2014

Last Thursday night, HTG and Disco Donnie Presents, in association with Alliance and Venue 578, hosted Dutch DJ and producer R3hab at their weekly dance party, Ignition, and I took the opportunity to finally check him out. This time last year Fadi El Ghoul (R3hab) played Orlando twice: At Electric Daisy Carnival Orlando 2013 (see our preview of EDC Orlando 2014) and on Life in Color’s Rebirth Tour. I sadly missed him at EDC due to scheduling conflicts (his set was in the same slot as the one time that French DJ, producer, and tennis-enthusiast Martin Solveig, who’d never played Orlando).

During the LIC tour, R3hab was opening up for the Chipotle-loving Festival Trap god, Carnage. I was excited to see both of these big names at the Firestone Music Park, except the show was a messy paint party and that is not my idea of a good time…especially in a parking lot in downtown Orlando.

R3hab Live Review

(Photo by @hashtagmario)

R3hab’s show this time was at the new Venue 578, also known as the recently re-branded Firestone Live. The space itself has seen progressive renovations and updates over the past year. These changes have improved the layout, stage design, and the overall patron experience, including additional walkways, better stage sight-lines, and an expanded and revamped VIP section. When I asked Ashlie Rolfe, Director of Marketing, the reason for the new name, she happily replied.

“We had the opportunity to refocus and re-brand our image and venue and so we jumped on the concept.” -Rolfe.

The concept was to redesign the historical Firestone Tires warehouse into a New York City inspired venue for a more simple and straight forward space. With recent changes to the Orange Avenue’s lineup of clubs and bars, this only makes sense to stay ahead in the young, growing city.

My friends and I took a quick Lyft cab to Venue 578 and arrived as the line outside was dying down. Inside, nothing appeared to have changed since the recent re-branding and being a Club Firestone regular since 2005, watching it transform into Firestone Live, and now Venue 578, it was somewhat of a let down. But, all things considered, Venue 578 is moving in the right direction.

VIP Section at Venue 578: R3hab Live Review

I was surprised by the awesome turnout on a relatively dead Thursday night in downtown Orlando! The main dance floor was pretty full. Compared to many of the recent electronic dance music nights, the dude-to-lady ratio was on parity especially compared to the sausage fest of trap or dubstep shows.

The recently added back walkway in-between the main dance floor and VIP was closed off. This change annoyingly restricted non-VIP from the previously accessible backbar and no longer gives non-VIP the ability to get around the large and narrow main dance floor. As far as layout goes, on a busy night this constricts traffic flow to a detriment. I have never been a fan of VIP as a business model especially when being a Very Important Person is something that you pay to get versus just being one. Granted, between the additional access, space, and the bottle service, the VIP section was packed.

R3hab Live Review

The crowd was amped by openers and local favorites Alex Wood and Byno. By the time R3hab came on, everyone was ready to start dancing to his Dutch-styled house tracks. His set was a straight forward Big Room house set and did not deviate much from this style (meaning no bass music focus or beat-driven breakdowns). He played a variety of recent dance music favorites, like Major Lazer’s “Watch Out For This (Bumaye)”, a dance remix of Pompeii’s “Bastille”, and the familiar Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ hook on A-Trak’s remix of “Heads Will Roll,” which kept his set pretty safe.

His fans got crazy when he dropped his original tracks like his collaboration with NERVO on “Ready for the Weekend,” Deorro on “Flashlight,” and with NERVO and Ummet Ozcan on “Revolution.” However, at a certain point, I began to wonder if I was at a Calvin Harris show with the number of R3hab edits of the Scottish mega-producer and DJ that were played, like “Summer” and “I Need Your Love” (not that I would be complaining if I was also at a Calvin Harris show).

R3hab did a great job of getting the crowd hyped up. He frequently jumped on the mic and got everyone pumped for the familiar drops in the tracks he was spinning. With such a packed house, it was a great crowd with everyone there to dance and party. The only thing that really irked me and my friends were a couple next to us that were feeling the music a little to hard as they were solely into each other for the majority of the set and probably should have gotten a room instead of tickets to the show.

As much as people have been complaining about the push-play button DJing that has grown ripe in the scene, it was reassuring to hear that R3hab was actually mixing on stage during his set. His opening DJs vouched for his skills and performance on a Facebook thread from some detractors from a competing night. While people can troll away about prerecorded sets, ghost producers, and celebrity DJs, the fact was that the music was good, the floor was packed, and everyone had fun. Last time I checked that’s all that really mattered.

R3hab Live Review and R3hab Live Photos by Donnie George.


▼ SHOWS TO GO TO ▼

LIVE-NATION---BOTTOM-GIF-031324

 


Thanks to our Sponsors, Kingfish Records in Clearwater, FL!

Kingfish Records Ad


Check out our South Florida SIGT Website! 

Shows I Go To South Florida Giveaway, Reviews, Photos, and more


Please support our friends who support us! Tell them Shows I Go To sends love! 🙂

Recommended Posts