Zeds Dead at the Ogden Theatre, 4/15/11

Last night at the Ogden Theatre, Zeds Dead threw down for an energetic crowd in which the music was nonstop, the decibel meter slowly rose with each subsequent artist and the crowd gradually seemed to meld into one large air-humping party.

Upon arriving, the first thing we noticed was that there seemed to be an unusually high number of bracelets being applied on this particular night. About mid-show, it became very apparent why when all the hands went up in the air. There were more Xs visible than in Charlie Sheen's special little black book. Clearly this music knows know age. The place was packed with young and old, and everyone raged with equal vigor all night.

Nick G. and Sage B. Ragin were the first to grace the stage last night. There were three tables set up on the stage when they came out: Two DJ set-ups on the front flanking Zeds Dead's controllers in the center. The Ogden filled up pretty quick by the time Nick and Sage were finishing up and Zeno was coming on. This show pretty much didn't stop from the first act to the last. The set list had no breaks in it whatsoever. The performers just walked out, picked up where the previous act left off and ran with the beats -- with the exception of Zeno, who just couldn't seem to pick up the pace. He was trying, but the crowd was just not feeling it, and soon, the line to smoke in the Colfax cancer corral was one-in-one-out.

The next act up was 2DUBAII, who just signed with Souls In Action Entertainment, the outfit responsible for this intense, non-stop night of bass and electro. Stage persona can be an important part of an act's aesthetic -- Deadmau5 has his mau5heads, Lazerdisk Party Sex and Daft Punk have their helmets and Derek Vincent Smith has his flat-bill hats -- but the Zorror masks this Boulder duo was sporting didn't make any sense. The dudes looked like two missing members from the Crazy 88. But the pair did manage to get the crowd to liven up a bit.

The end of 2D's set was greeted with a rush of applause. People were clearly hyped for Zeds Dead to take the stage. Omar Lynx joined the act for the couple tracks, opening with "Rude Boy," a slow-tempo number and good primer for the headliners. After Lynx excused himself, ZD opened with its remix of the Moody Blues' hit, "Nights in White Satin."

I could decipher most of the remixed songs and some of the original cuts, but the dub-blood thirsty fans absolutely lost it when Nero's "Me and You" played. There are some staple tracks that almost all remixing dub-steppers play, and if it's not an over played Flux Pavilion track, then it's probably a Nero track. Zeds Dead killed it, though. And that pun is definitely intended.

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK Personal Bias: Zeds Dead played Snowball and brought the rain of a party. Random Detail: The ZAP! decibel meter reads decibels levels (duh) at the sound booth. The opening artists play somewhere between 92 and 96 decibels, whereas the headliner closes the night at around 104. To compare, a jet engine blares around 120db.