DJ XXYYXX brought EDM music to a packed Recreation Center Friday night.
Brenna Swanston
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Minutes before the show, the main gym in the Recreation Center was a can of sardines. The venue was crammed — from the stage to the bleachers to the doors in the back — with loud, rowdy, dancing college students. Thirty minutes after he was slated to take the stage this past Friday night, electronic DJ XXYYXX finally made his anticlimactic entrance.
XXYYXX stepped onstage, walked to the microphone and greeted his audience.
“It takes a very long time to get from Florida to California,” he announced. “I learned that.”
He then flipped open his primary instrument, a MacBook. The laptop’s Apple emblem glowed white as electronic music filled the gym. XXYYXX hunched over the soundboard next to his laptop, frantically turning knobs and flipping switches and bobbing his whole body to the beat, while bass thumped through the floorboards and into the audience’s throats.
The DJ looked up from his soundboard and smiled at the crowd. Everyone was nodding their heads in sync with the music, many with closed eyes.
Microbiology freshman Katie Laramore danced enthusiastically on the sidelines with a group of friends. She had been listening to electronic dance music for four years and was familiar with XXYYXX’s work.
“It’s really fun to dance to,” Laramore said. “I’m excited to be seeing him tonight.”
A few songs into his set, XXYYXX suddenly cut off all sound and took the microphone again.
“I have bad news,” he said. “Don’t be sad. I’m an idiot and I’m tired. I’ll be right back. I have to go get my charger before my computer dies at the beginning of my concert.”
XXYYXX awkwardly left the then-silent stage and returned a few minutes later, charger in hand, with some life advice for his audience.
“Don’t do drugs,” he said, after which he plugged in his laptop and resumed the concert.
Behind the unpronounceable pseudonym, DJ XXYYXX is 18-year-old Marcel Everett of Orlando, Fla. Only minutes before his scheduled performance time, he sat in his small, designated lounge, devouring a bowl of potato chips, looking like any average teenager.
And, like any average teenager, Everett is not quite sure what he wants to do with his life. Having recently graduated high school, he is torn between going to college and committing full-time to his music, he said.
“I’m juggling both the idea of college and of music,” Everett said. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll be making music either way.”
After all, he was able to balance his music career with his high school courses.
“Not that I ever showed up,” he said.
Everett began his musical career at age 9, when he started playing guitar. He picked up piano at 12, joined his first band at 13 and endured his first band breakup at 15. That year, he began dabbling in electronic music.
In the beginning, he put out his electronic music on Tumblr under the name “XXYYXX” simply because it was an available username, he said. Now, only three years later, Everett has made a mark on the electronic dance music scene, performed in venues as large as Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado and has no intention of stopping here.
“I feel like making music is just a part of my personality,” he said.
Computer science junior Minnal Kunnan became familiar with XXYYXX through other musicians of the same genre, so he attended the DJ’s Cal Poly concert.
Considering Everett’s young age, Kunnan was impressed overall by his performance, he said.
“I’m not the biggest fan of XXYYXX, but at 18 years old, I feel like he has huge potential and is doing pretty well,” he said.
Of all age groups, Everett enjoys performing for college students because they get more into the music, he said.
“When you perform at a club, people are 26, 27,” he said. “They’re more concerned with how cool they are. They don’t really get down with the music.”
College students, however, become more engaged with the performance.
“They’re younger,” he said. “They just want to do something and have fun.”
Everett has performed at University of San Diego, New York University and University of Florida, but he particularly looked forward to performing in San Luis Obispo because he knew it was a fun college town.
“I wanted to stay and chill longer,” he said.
Although Everett had less free time in San Luis Obispo than he would have liked, he said the performance is always the most important and enjoyable part of his trips.
“The energy bounces back and forth with the crowd,” he said. “When you have fun, they have fun. It’s different than dancing alone in your bedroom. It’s a different energy.”