Halloween on a Wednesday can be thoroughly unexciting for students. Some go out with their friends for a while, but the majority of kids stay home and hand out candy or watch scary movies. Having the holiday on a school night really cramps its style, but I managed to escape the mundane Halloween by going to a concert. The concert in question was Justice at the Palladium Ballroom in Dallas.

Justice is a French electro-house duo that came onto the electronic music scene in 2007 with their debut album Cross, stylized as †. They have two studio albums, and while they are more popular in Europe than the U.S., you may know their song D.A.N.C.E. from the radio or from Just Dance 2. They are known for incorporating arena rock and funk/hip-hop elements into their music, and that was amplified in their live show.

First off, I want to explain how an electronic concert works. The group or DJ that is playing doesn’t perform each song separately; instead they create a continuous mix of all the songs they want to play that seamlessly incorporates them all together. Most of the time the songs are remixed as well, making a live electronic show a completely different experience than listening to the album. The artist may play the vocals or melody to one song over the bass from another, or completely change the filters on the different elements of the song in order to create a whole new track.

Some artists pre-record the mix completely and just let it play, some pre-record most of it but change some filters and tempos in the live show, and some mix their set completely live. The latter is by far the hardest to accomplish, and the most well respected DJs mix live, and do it well. Listeners get to hear a whole new side of the tracks they love, which is why EDM fans love going to concerts.
Now that that’s been explained, on to the show.

The bass used in this show was incredible. I’ve been to a lot of concerts – when I say that I really mean it since I’ve gone to over twenty – and this was the loudest bass I’ve ever experienced in a concert. Justice uses a lot of bass in their albums to start with, but nothing could prepare me for the amount used in the live show.  It was bone-shaking, organ-punching, hard crunchy bass and it gave the show the extra kick it needed to make the crowd (dressed ridiculously in their Halloween costumes) go absolutely crazy.

The mix that Justice played was amazing. It took all my favorite songs and smashed them to pieces, playing one part here, one part there, and some parts almost everywhere! Judging by the duo’s concentration on the soundboard in front of them and the crazy ways the sound was contorted and mixed up in time with their movements, I’d say Justice was mixing live, which immediately raised my respect for them by at least 50 points. My favorite songs, “DVNO” and “Newjack” were played one after the other, ingeniously mixed into each other and essentially making my night. The mix was heavier than the album as well, with more rock elements and grittier sounds, which worked very well in a live setting.

I’d say this was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, and judging by the amount of excitement the waffle to my right and the Powerpuff girls to my left were showing, I think they would agree.