Markus Schulz’s Scream Bus Tour rolled into Philadelphia on Thursday, April 11th to play at Soundgarden Hall with support from Khohma and M Machine.
We had spoken quickly with Markus about a week earlier and were looking forward to following up and catching his set on Soundgarden Hall’s killer sound system. With a lot of buzz also surrounding Khohma and M Machine, this show had the potential to be a special one for Trance fans.
u·ni·corn [yoo-ni-kawrn]
-noun
1. A mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead: often symbolic of chastity or purity.
2. A over-emotional Trance music track, usually laced with cheesy melodies and vocals throughout.
While we haven’t seen any horned horses parading around Philadelphia recently, we have heard our fair share of the latter. The appropriate cure would clearly be to do away with unicorns altogether. Enter Markus Schulz, the Unicorn Slayer.
By the time we entered Soundgarden Hall, Khohma was already rocking the crowd, showing everyone why he’s garnering so much admiration from fans and peers alike. From the back of the venue we could see that The Scream Bus Tour had brought in some extra fire power in the form of a sweet LED stage set-up and we were anxious to get up close and check it out.
But first things first. Markus Schulz had just entered the venue from his tour bus across the street (to the delight of fans waiting in line outside who cheered and shook his hand) and we had some more questions for him. You can check out our interview right here:
From there we caught the end of Khohma from the Hacienda Lounge (21+ area) at the back of the club.
Up next was M Machine. The San Francisco trio of Ben Swardlick, Eric Luttrell and Andy Coenen, who are touring in support of they newest EP, “Metropolis Pt II”, had SGH going bananas with their multi-genre blending sound and signature light show which is synced to their music.
We imagine that they’ll be making the festival rounds again this summer and we suggest you catch them if you have the chance.
At precisely 1230am, M Machine left the stage, the lights went dark, and Markus Schulz’s fans (many of whom either wore Unicorn inspired hats or “Unicorn Slayer” t-shirts) began to lose their minds.
The Unicorn Slayer (a name he adopted after he was labeled with the moniker by a fan on Twitter) came out with a ton of energy. It was electric.
Smiling, waiving at at the crowd, and generally enjoying himself, he laid into his set. Perhaps fans thought that the Scream Tour meant they were supposed to scream…because they certainly did a lot of it. Others waived signs at the DJ, danced, and lost themselves in a trance for the next 2+ hours.
The tour now moves to Buffalo, NY today before hitting State College, PA and Washington, DC on Saturday.
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[Photo credit: D. Jacob Miller Photography]
You can view an expanded photo gallery below (click thumbnails to enlarge):
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