Steve Aoki Starts the Party

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Going into Summerfest 2022, there was some curiosity as to what the environment would be like. Last fall’s version of the festival, rescheduled due to COVID-19 concerns, was met with down attendance for a multitude of reasons, and in general something felt off about the atmosphere. Any concerns about a repeat of that experience were not only squashed, but jumped on by thousands of screaming fans at the Miller Lite Oasis on Thursday night, as DJ, producer, and cake-thrower extraordinaire Steve Aoki ignited Summerfest 2022 with one of the first headlining sets of the festival.

The party at the Miller Lite Oasis had actually begun hours earlier, as the day’s lineup on the ground stage was anchored around DJs and producers on Dim Mak, Aoki’s record label. The lead-in certainly helped amass a large crowd, who were at a fever pitch by the time an animated outline of Aoki’s hair and beard flashed on the larger-than-life LED riser around 10:15. The Big Bang fireworks had gone off during the end of an opening set from The Dojo, billed as an all-star party with the Dim Mak artists, which only fired the crowd up even further. The only thing that would compare to the boom of the fireworks were the bass hits from the set that followed.

For the better part of an hour and 45 minutes, there was no slowing down Steve Aoki. He came out of the gate with high energy beats, many from 2020’s Neon Future IV, as well as a string of subsequent singles that have been released largely while there weren’t crowds to entertain. Rather than putting all of the emphasis on blasting steam cannons and pyrotechnics, the early portion of the set was focused on hitting as much music as he could, albeit the stage production tropes would appear later. Aoki’s set was a non-stop barrage of tracks that rarely turned down the BPMs, unless it was to get the crowd clapping along en masse. It wasn’t going to take a lot to win over an amped up Miller Lite Oasis, but the Dim Mak label head gave fans plenty to jump and dance along to.

Ever the futurist, Thursday night also featured a number of moments that were outside of the standard EDM threshold, but were on trend with the emerging markets in the world of electronic and pop music. There was a short section that focused on the infusion of Latin and reggaeton, built around “Nataaoki,” a collaboration with Latin rapper Natanael Cano. There was also a detour featuring “Mic Drop,” a track with Korean pop mega-stars BTS that has racked up over a billion plays on YouTube. The resurgence of pop punk also has a space in Steve Aoki’s set, as he slid in “Halfway Dead” featuring Global Dan and Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, while also blending with Panic At The Disco’s breakout “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” It was clear that Aoki, who ran around the stage shirtless with custom pants that featured his logo and the logo of popular trading card phenomenon MetaZoo, was all about the here and now.

As Summerfest neared their midnight curfew, the party was only beginning to wind down for Aoki and crew. The back half of the night’s barrage of music leaned more into the standards for his festival sets, complete with fireworks, plenty of steam, and of course, cakes being thrown into the crowd. The constant showman requested security find crowd members with signs to get “caked,” so they could be in the front of the Oasis crowd. Per the norm for an Aoki set, roughly ten sheet cakes then went one by one into the ground stage’s massive crowd, with some fans leaving a lot messier than others. It was the culmination of a night that gave fans everything they could want from an EDM show and more, with Aoki calling it a night and thanking the crowd on the stroke of midnight. Milwaukee showed up for a party on Thursday, and left witnessing an absolute spectacle.