For many of the same four-four enthusiasts, though, the performance contributed by deadmau5 at the City Hall stage on night two made the entire event worthwhile. After having the decks warmed up for him by the likes of Illennium and ODESZA, the ‘mau5 spent an hour-long intermission arranging his famous stage setup of late – a geodesic dome that gradually opened up over the course of his sonically flawless set. On the opposite stage, Gareth Emery, Big Gigantic and Hardwell closed the night out before the unrelenting bass wobbles of Excision carried the crowd home at the same one.
While it’s no misstep that Global Dance has so thoroughly intertwined itself with the Centennial State’s bass music love affair, the promotional company might not be doing itself any favors by overlooking the draw of “proper” house and techno acts. The fanbase of such genres might be markedly older in the microcosm of the Denver scene, but in the bigger markets it’s seeing a renaissance in the younger generations of electronic music enthusiasts – to such an extent that Ultra Music Festival’s 2016 lineup features almost as many “underground” artists as mainstagers. Sure, there were some house DJs at Decadence – but they were mostly locals and were confined to the Silent Disco where the headphone-based sound setup made mixing a nightmare.
Aside from underground warehouse parties, local outfits like The Hundred Presents have poised themselves to capitalize on the coming resurgence more effectively; the company’s own New Year’s Eve event at Club Vinyl might not have brought in as many heads as Decadence NYE, but it provided a clear-cut alternative for fans who may feel marginalized by the dominance of contemporary EDM on the massive’s lineup.
Meanwhile, the devoted dubstep following to which Global Dance increasingly caters grows more and more obscure by the day. The music has gotten more aggressive, and the crowd has followed suit. Little by little, dubstep is becoming the heavy metal of our musical era, and the more Global Dance makes itself synonymous with the moshing, headbanging outcasts that form its diehard fanbase, the more they run the risk of themselves becoming an anachronism of a bygone era.
As with many shifts taking place in contemporary electronic music, though, what may spell bad news for the industry may prove a saving grace for the music itself. As so many other entertainment moguls the world over discover that the movement can’t be steered by money alone, perhaps the 2012 sale of Global Dance to an unfeeling corporation like AEG Live will eventually turn out to be what keeps events like Decadence NYE from turning with the tides.
At the same time, who knows – maybe Denver’s passion for bass music will turn out to be an industry anomaly that defies the trends unfolding on a national and global scale. Either way, 2016 is shaping up to be quite an interesting year for the world of dance music.