Dabin: Aura Park Tour, Seattle

SO I've been in Seattle this summer for my internship, and what happens when I open up instagram on a Saturday morning, I see Paper Skies post that hes in my city and the next slide is basically the set times:

Now this wasnt the exact flyer the exact flyer had the timings for everyone and when doors opened but I just look at this and I'm just like Paper Skies, CHYL??? AND THEN DABIN?? AND THEN YOU THROW IN MITIS LIKE thats 3 artists that I lsiten to A LOT especially Paper Skies and Chyl. That's when that thought comes in of like "wait what if I find a way to go to this concert" like its honestly crazy reflecting back on this.

SO anyway that saturday i had plans of eating lunch and then going to thsi game center with some friends where there was a bunch of Japanese rhythm games and it was quite interesting. 

They were all like very authentic Japanese games and ppl were wearing wired headphones and gloves and doing crazy sht like some of these mfs were legit spamming like crazy and theres like sliders and sensors and so much tech and they this is like steroids lmao but I tried out this racing game which was pretty cool it reminded me of driving on japanese streetview on geoguessr. I also played this random rhythm game with 5 buttons and a foot pedal and spinners and after the tutorial and some easy levels I tried out an intermediate and it was just way too mcuh like bruh that takes hours to master lmao.

Then I went to this game in a room which was really cool its the first image and youre basically a train conductor and you have to stay within the changing speed limits and also dim the lights when there's ongoing traffic and you have to stop the train at the exact spot and it was pretty fun it was prob my favorite game. But after like 90 minutes or something I dont have a game card to login with progress or anything and like bro it just felt like a cave in there like it felt like I couldn't breathe and I was not enjoying my time and it was so dark and i can't descibe it maybe cuz its been a day but man like I legit was almost getting sick in there so I told my friends im like "yeah this isnt for me imma dip" and i was never happier to leave lmao no disrespect. So here I was stranded in "Kent, Washington" and it was 1 hr commute back to my apartment and like I was thinking to myself that like I left early it was like 4 pm at this point and the target time is when Paper Skies performs at 7 pm, and I'm legit thinking to myself that I'm going like the FOMO starts hitting at the game center, I'm legit thinking about it and like that I can legit go and that I'm free this night and that I can't miss this lmao and this is perfect opportunity and everything and I start like REALLY WANTING TO GO. So on the bus back I'm trynna look at the tickets on ticketmaster but its not loading it says network error or somethign so I'm just like wahtever cuz i wasnt planning on buying it anyway i was gonna check my company slack to see if anyones selling. I get home at like 5 PM and no ones selling tickets, some ppl are but like ppl reacted with a checkmark so im pretty sure its bought so I go on my computer and I buy a resale ticket for $43 which is a STEAL because the bass price is like 66 or something and ppl on slack were selling it for like 60 so like I was very pleasantly surprised by that purchase.

So here I was, I got there kinda late at like 7:10 PM and bro like going to this rave by myself was really uncomfortable at first when I walked in and it was honestly just so crazy like I'm really here like I had 0 plans on being here I legit came here because of an Instagram story that I just happened to open. But after like 10 minutes of just being mindblown and just analyzing the colourbass I was listening to and man those speakers were so loud I forgot how loud it is at these raves and I was looking around seeing who has earplugs in and like some ppl did and some ppl didnt. Anyway after like 15 min I like opened up and like nothing mattered anymore because of that music like I remember being so excited when I first stepped in and saw Paper Skies there like this is literally the main reason why I'm here. The crowd wasn't that big cuz it was like the very first opener.

Paper Skies

Really enjoyed Paper Skies it lowkey felt surreal for some reason even though hes a small artist but I discovered him through "Comet" with Slyleaf and now hes performing with Dabin. I met some ppl during this part too, and now after Paper Skies it was Hex Cougar, who I've never heard of but he was an Indian DJ that isn't too common so that was cool. I really liked these Melodic Dubstep drops and his whole style have this rushed, dystopian backtone to it with like dark atmospheres. He honestly mixed it up a lot with like Techno or Bass House or Trap. I don't even rly know what his primary genre is, I'll have to dive into it on Spotify. I presume its jsut melodic bass/dubstep. Anyway though after like 10 min I left because I was gonna be here until like 12 AM and all I was running on was Marugame udon from like 1 PM and I forgot to eat something before. So I tried to go out to buy a hot dog from a hot dog stand but they said no re-entry so im like bruh and I SPENT 10 DOLLARS ON A PRETZEL AND CHEESE bruh it was 17 bucks for chicken tenders and fries like bruh. And I also bought a bottle of water which i forgot how much prob like 13 dollars or something but the total came out to 15. Whatever tho, I sat down in the back and ate my pretzen and observed Hex Cougar and chilled for like the next 40 minutes, it was a nice break. Then as he was ending I made my way back to get ready for Chyl because Chyl is so hype and the crowd was already so huge. It's crazy that Chyl isn't even the 2nd biggest opener here, that's how stacked this lineup is. 

CHYL

This set was CRAZY. It really got me thinking like how many boundaries Chyl broke like this is truly so incredible and inspirational. Her whole Speed House genre and racing brand is entirely self-made, brick by brick, and she literally defied like all the standards set in the EDM industry and showed like that great music and great progressions arent jsut subject to the standards that all the artists before you set. You can make your own boundaries. Normally I jump to these drops but with Speed House and the pacing u just gotta bump to it like you can't even headbang because of how fast it is like you can in halftime but it doesnt make sense. Speed House is such a unique genre and honestly all the drops sounded the same but it was so fire and I loved the visuals and her stage presense was fire too. SHe had some techno drops in the mix too which I wasn't a big fan of and she honestly didn't play too many of my favorite songs from her. She played a lot of remixes and live mixes and she did play "Show You What You Love" which was fire live but she didnt play "Euphoria Rush" or many tracks from her Sports Mode EP which was one of the only disappointing parts of her set. This is when I started being so glad I came here like i was legit feeling like wtf is life type stuff lmao.

MitiS

Then MitiS arrived and hes just this fat short bearded white guy like I thought this guy was a crew member at first LOL and then I realized wait thats MitiS. He legit reminds me of Tyler from dude perfect. Anyway at this point I had no plans on leaving to take a break like I was deep into the crowd and he kicked things off with this incredible melodic dubstep drop that was just so beautiful with these long decays jsut classic MitiS work and it set the stage so well and really reminded me of his brand. I used to listen to MitiS quite a lot in like 2020 I legit remember. When he played his Cold Skin remix I was legit screaming all the lyrics and I knew the drop by heart. I wish he played more of those nostalgic tracks that I listened to but he played some really like Seven Lions like tracks that I didn't know. He did play "Only Now" which was FIRE I spammed that song with "Break THe Silence" and speaking of that why did he not play "Break The Silence" because dude that track was in 10+ of my OCs like that song is so iconic idk why he made these choices but anyway that was MitiS like man this lineup is stacked I'm so glad i came here.

Dabin

And then finally Dabin arrived. It was 10:20 PM and he wasn't even the main attraction for me TBH, I take Chyl over him but Dabin is definitely no joke he has a ton of hits and I've been listening to him since i was like 16 starting with Rings & Roses and Starbright and he peaked at Worlds Away and Superstar for me. I was really interested to see this set and how a lot of these edmrock drops would go and they were fire. He had just a whole bunch of everything and a ton of like remixes like APT. and Kpop demon hunters and even a Porter Robinson Language mashup. I really wish he played Superstar cuz I really love that song I spammed it a lot back in the day. But I am really happy that he played the full version with both drops and a bridge of "Night Blooms" because that song is really peak for me too. You'lll see it in my Aura Park review for Q2 EDM, that track is so good and I was screaming all the lyrics especially in that 2nd verse, and man it was so good. I remember feeling so happy like I made some friends and we were just having the time of our lives and I was having the time of my life during that song like hearing these songs live that you listen to on a regular basis are just elevated from the rest of the set. He was also shredding it in a lot of the rock songs and I loved it when I could hear it clearly, like in some of the predrops the guitar sounded so sick. I love this sort of live music incorporation, he did a section on keys too. 

And with taht and he played like some song that I honeslty forgot but its one of his hit tracks and with that the concert was over. It was really quite similar to the Zedd concert last year in terms of venue and the progression between the openers and the main artist. Like none of the Djs got lasers or fire until it got to Zedd, just like here in Dabin. Zedd also brought out Ellis and Mesto if I recall corectly, just like how Dabin brought out Paper Skies and MitiS for their remixes. I will say Zedd has way more hits and iconic tracks no question, but I thoroughly enjoyed this set list more, like having MitiS and CHYL and Paper Skies makes this concert so hard to put under the Zedd experience. I really don't know which one I liked better because Zedd's set was so incredible like it was straightup so fire with just banger after banger, but honestly bro like overall I will say Dabin just cuz of that reason of the stacked lineup.

And there we go, what a really memorable experience I can takeaway with me from this summer, it was so spontaneous. I still remember that discomfort of when I first walked in and being like lowkey i dont wanna be here but thats how it always is when you go outta ur comfort zone like man this was so fire I'm legit so glad i went. My ears were honeslty not that bad afterwards like I did lose my voice and my ear were lowkey fked up but it wasnt like Zedd when they were like lowkey like muffled like it was lowkey ringing and I couldn't hear sht properly. I ended up sleeing at like 4 AM that night lmao, my sleep schedule is so fked up like I'm writing this at 6 AM on a Monday before work because I couldn't fall bakc asleep its a long story. 

Lyric(s) of the Post: 

"Stay up in the clouds when the sky falls down

But when the sun disappears and the lights goes out"

Dabin - Night Blooms