CU students and bass fans from afar will be scraping the paint from their ears for days following Saturday night’s Life in Color concert headlined by Borgore at Balch Fieldhouse.
Life in Color, brought to campus by Program Council, boasted an impressive lineup with infamous Borgore and Denver-local Basscrooks. Although the venue’s 4,000 tickets took until Friday night to sell out, they did sell out and Balch Fieldhouse was packed.
Seven Lions missed the show due to a cancelled flight, leaving Basscrooks, originally slated to play as mid-show support, to fill the space. Basscrooks’ set included an epic remix of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” that got the crowd absolutely raucous.
Basscrooks threw in clips of their most recent mixtape “Meet Me In The Trap Vol. 2” and their “Titan” remix, recognizable by seasoned fans. Their two-hour set had the crowd moving in a way only Borgore could top later in the night with the addition of the Cream Machine.
After the relatively low-lit first five hours of the concert, the entrance of the Cream Machine woke the crowd up from their dance-infused daydream. The Cream Machine is a massive ice cream truck-shaped structure with a huge DJ deck cut into the middle and surrounded by some of the brightest LED screens ever seen on stage. The always-controversial Borgore used his out-of-the-box backdrop as an opportunity to display images of half-naked women that, at points, neared on pornographic.
The highlight of the Cream Machine’s time on stage was when Borgore surprised the crowd with a remix of the “Macarena.” Yelling out for all the “hot Boulder ladies” to come take the stage with him, Borgore moved out from behind his DJ tables and performed the Macarena with ten of Boulder’s finest as the 90s-tastic music video played on the screens behind them.
Borgore’s set was expertly crafted and featured tracks from a variety of EDM sub-genres. He hit his up-tempo fans with his song “Incredible” featuring Carnage, remixes of “Bonfire” and “Centipede” by Knife Party and “Kyoto” by Skrillex. For hard and slow dubstep fans, Borgore gave them “Foes,” “Nympho” and the appropriately titled “Ice Cream.”
Despite the on-campus venue, Borgore stayed true to his filthy roots and included the song “Love (Gagging Version)” to his lineup. In-between the heavy bass and laughable, simplistic rap-verse overlay, the sound of a young woman choking and spitting reverberated through the Fieldhouse. While a couple guards at the fringes of the show looked confused — if not nauseous — the crowd danced harder and paint spray continued.
Early on in the show, a giant countdown clock was projected behind the acts to mark the time left until the next big paint blast. As the Fieldhouse filled up, the paint came more and more frequently. At first, a lot of fans were disappointed with the paint — not only was it messy and slimy, but it also burned the skin — cross your fingers that you never got it in your eyes or mouth. As the show went on, however, fans accepted their messy hair and peeling faces and started smearing paint all over their friends. At least three times throughout the concerts, paper confetti was released from the ceiling, covering painted fans wall-to-wall in a papier-mâché of tissue paper and slime.
If that sounds gross to you, well, you had to be there.
If you had been standing outside of Balch Fieldhouse at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, you would have seen a huddled mass of dripping wet, pink and green zombies pouring out the door. If they weren’t smiling, it was only because they didn’t have the energy.
Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.