Virtual Self, AKA Porter Robinson’s most recent project, has without a doubt blown the crowd away with his tour set, visuals, and light show.
Last year in October Porter Robinson announced a new project called Virtual Self, followed by a 5 track EP released last November and a tour announcement for 2018.
The highly anticipated Chicago crowd has patiently waited months for a Virtual Self show. Previously at Spring Awakening Music Festival back in June, Porter was not able to play his Virtual Self set due to production complications. As a result, his set at Aragon was finally his chance to show Chicago just how phenomenal Virtual Self really is.
Which left several of fans desperate and antsy for this Virtual Self set.
Before the set, Porter posted on Instagram saying he felt sick and nauseous, however he was still going to try to play the best set he could. Minutes later, he was dancing all over the stage and had the entire crowd moving.
Although I know it will never happen, during the set while he was transitioning between songs, I was waiting for him to drop a teaser of “Flicker” or “Language” somewhere during his set. But, as Porter stated on Twitter before, “no virtual self music at porter shows, no porter music at virtual self shows!”
We all know that feeling when the main artist is about to go on and all the lights shut off in the venue. Porter always knows how to give an aroma of feels throughout his whole set. It’s a warm, futuristic deep glow that many of his generation still feel, a deeply shared nostalgia for something that cannot yet be put into words.
The genre of Virtual Self is similar to most of his older music, which is very techno, trance, and a bit of hardstyle, with his production beyond any level you could imagine. It still doesn’t seem like it’s the same person on that stage.
He calls the live show and tour UTOPIA, and it was originally intended only for warehouses. It’s a show full of meticulous laser work and a full glass stage that Porter performs on top of. Hundreds of lights strobe underneath giving a mind-blowing light show overall. His figure is obscured by exhaustive amounts of fog and smoke to catch each blinding laser.
The crowd was dancing from front to back of Aragon, loving and cherishing every minute of the set.
This set was a mind-melting hour and a half of drum n’ bass and speed-core music, with one of the most unique & craziest light shows I have seen in a while. If you ever wanted to experience a real life futuristic sci-fi film, this is your kind of set!
I was almost just as excited to see Mat Zo because he rarely comes around Chicago. His set was very chill and had many different styles and flavors of electronic music. But he definitely got the got the crowd hyped up towards the last 10 minutes of his set when he started mixing up the beats to more of his harder stuff, and dropped his most known hit single with Porter Robinson, “Easy.”
Virtual Self – Porter Robinson @ Aragon Ballroom September 7th, 2018 Photos
Check out all of the photos from this event below!
Big thanks to Mark Reddington Photography for photographing this event! Be sure to give him a like on his Facebook page.
