Review by: Killian Fay
Ghastly played at the Catalyst last Friday, the 20th of April. The show can be aptly described as intense. I got there in time to see one of the openers who performed before Ghastly, who was called Riot Ten. Every song in his set was heavy dubstep, all sounding suspiciously similar, almost to the point of monotony. He did nothing innovative, in production or performance. By halfway through his set, I was ready for it to be over. Adding to that experience was the crowd. The catalyst was extremely full, and one was constrained to the space by the stairs at the back if they enjoyed having any room to move at all. The individuals making up the crowd also seemed to lack any particular amount of spatial awareness, bumping into their neighbors and pushing their way past people if they wanted to get somewhere.
The beginning of Ghastly’s set was a welcome change to the atmosphere. This is his first headlining tour, called the ‘Mystifying Oracle 2018 Tour’. The title comes from that of his debut album, releasing May 4th. The first half of Ghastly’s set seemed well put-together, and had me and the rest of the crowd moving. He spoke to the crowd a decent amount, but not excessively so. It wouldn’t have hurt though if he had counted down from three just before the drop one or two fewer times. In the middle of his set, he played Avicii’s song ‘Levels’, in honor of the popular artist’s passing. This was received well, and had the whole room enthusiastically singing along. After that, his set felt disorganized, as he played mediocre dubstep songs, sprinkled with an occasional emotional, female-vocals-and-synth-heavy track. His set continued well past an hour long, and by the end, felt like it was falling into redundancy. Ghastly is a good producer, and not a bad DJ, but given his popularity and the time he has spent in the world of EDM performance, I was expecting a little better.