Eric Prydz

For contrast, the way Prydz dropped his remix of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" -- a seminal dance track -- was as undramatic as possible. When Armin van Buuren uses the same remix in his festival headlining gigs, it's often cause for fireworks and certainly functions as a dramatic peak. It's the same with "Every Day," which landed Prydz at the No. 3 spot on Billboard's Hot Dance Club chart but is presented as just another chapter in the development of the night. The man knows his way around an anti-climax. What he gained in quality and credibility he may have lost in impact, as the crowd -- observed from one of the balconies -- certainly wasn't going too wild. Prydz' mastery is his ability to command and then educate audiences who might walk into a concert with more commercial, big-room understandings of dance music. If there's a downside to not doing hand-hearts and telling audiences to sit down before blaring, obvious drops shake the walls of the venue you're DJ'ing in, it's that you risk having to touch a crowd on a deeper level than the "rage" metric too many of today's top dance acts are still trying to approach. But as a dance music observer, this writer was impressed by what's either Prydz' natural credibility or insistence on not changing his format. For fans with slightly deeper tastes, the show is a solid night of club music, an almost wordless opera with many acts, messaged and divided by visuals as much as music... For mainstreamers simply buying tickets to every "EDM" show in the tri-state area, it was probably just a fun night with plenty of Instagram-ready moments.