Photos courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl
Before writing his new album SMILE! :D, Porter Robinson wanted to make music that was all about having fun, with absolutely no sincerity involved. It’s an understandable move, as spending years examining your biggest insecurities and fears through song would make anyone want to take a break from honesty. But upon SMILE! :D’s release earlier this year, it was clear how much Porter had strayed from his original plan for the album, with it ending up as his most raw and candid work yet. Instead, Porter’s original vision of SMILE! :D as a “nonstop party” has been passed down to a more suitable vehicle – his new live show.
As I walked into the Hollywood Bowl, the first thing that caught my attention was the rigidly divided outfits of Porter’s fanbase. The producer’s musical and visual reinventions from album to album have separated his listeners by their favorite records, even by fashion sense. Younger fans rocked costumes homaging the garish costumes that Porter has worn this year, while others wore the earthy tones of Nurture-era merchandise from 2021. But the older fans’ allegiances were the clearest, with countless outfits referencing Porter’s legendary 2014 EDM classic Worlds. It was a fact that made me even more excited for the coming show – SMILE! :D’s y2k aesthetic is just about as far as you can get from the otherworldly lushness of Worlds and Nurture.
Hyper-rap pioneer and Porter’s occasional Twitch stream buddy ericdoa served as an electrifying and confounding act for the night. Turning the stage into a teenager’s bedroom (fit with an actual bed), television screens surrounded the artist while playing a constant Tik-Tokian barrage of Call of Duty and Family Guy clips. Throughout the set, airhorns, baby noises, and cries of “oh my god!” playing from a soundboard became so frequent that they started to become fills and complements to the hooks of songs. This aggressively Gen-Z sense of humor was never going to appeal to the Millennials that make up a decent chunk of Porter’s fanbase, but it certainly went over well with people in Eric’s younger age range (me included).
Despite, or perhaps as a result of his penchant for humor, Eric was much more than just a gimmick act – it was clear that he had a genuine passion and talent for performance. The rock-tinged “cheap liquor” and the danceable “search & destroy” illustrated this well, with Eric’s frenzied stage presence and genuine vocal talent adding a new energy to the already fiery songs. After closing out his set, the screens displayed a bright “Leave a tip?” screen as an appropriately silly farewell. As Eric left the stage and the lights dimmed, an audience member behind me shouted out “40%!”, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
A mercifully short wait followed, with SMILE! :D album opener “Knock Yourself Out XD” introducing the venue not just to Porter, but his brand new band. In his 14 year long career, SMILE! :D is Porter’s first album to ever break away from EDM, instead drawing influence from 2000’s era pop rock in the vein of The Killers and Hellogoodbye. To adjust to this sound, Porter has completely reformatted his show, forgoing backing tracks and complicated visuals for live instrumentation and a simpler stage setup. SMILE! :D slowburners like “Kitsune Maison Freestyle” and “Year of the Cup” showed off the band’s ability to create a sense of intimacy, while “Mona Lisa” and a rare cover of MGMT’s “Kids” displayed their ability to rock. Porter’s sense of humor also shined through – his formerly mindful and soft-spoken persona is a stark contrast to the ironic mock-celebrity persona he’s been inhabiting this year. “That shit makes me cry,” Porter confessed after the emotional climax of “Easier to Love You,” “And for that reason, this song goes out to Peter Griffin from Family Guy!”
On the album-closing ballad “Everything to Me,” Porter took a moment to drop the irony, telling the audience about his conflicting fear and love for them. As Porter praised fans both new and old, a sea of phone lights filled the bowl – uniting every reach of his audience. The simultaneously hilarious and moving “Russian Roulette” followed, with Porter’s closing shout of “I wanna play the Hollywood Bowl one more fucking time / I wanna live!” sending the crowd into a frenzy alongside the song’s absurd hands-up drop. This rounded out nearly the entirety of SMILE! :D in a brisk 40 minutes, with only one song from the album left conspicuously absent: its lead single, “Cheerleader” (more on that later).
After the lights of the city on stage dimmed, natural birdsong faded in to indicate the start of the show’s Nurture set. While Porter’s past tours reworked his old songs to fit the aesthetic of his most recent album, the SMILE! :D show gives each album its own set, Eras Tour style. Despite Nurture’s focus on ethereal and organic electronic pop, songs from the album were transformed into over-the-top rock anthems in shockingly smooth fashion. “Unfold” was a prime example of this, with the song’s walls of sound and drummer Wojtek Deregowski’s rapid fire hits translating to a rager that bordered on shoegaze. While the original song’s vocals are heavily produced, Porter carried it live without any processing, all while madly leaping across the stage. It was a breathtaking display of Porter’s newfound showmanship and confidence, one that also recontextualized the lyrics of the original song. “‘Cause I’m not the same as I was,” Porter screamed at its end, “As I shoulder the weight of the world!”
After blasting through life affirming fan favorites like “Everything Goes On,” “Look at the Sky,” and “Trying to Feel Alive,” Porter ran up the stairs of the Hollywood Bowl to a B-stage at its center. After playing some of his biggest and loudest hits back-to-back, it was impressive to see Porter do a complete 180, uniting a crowd of 17,000 with just a piano and his voice. Taking time to indulge audience requests, Porter played unpracticed versions of “Musician” and “Mother,” then led the crowd through a singalong of “Get Your Wish.” As well as the Nurture set worked in maximalist pop rock form, closing it out as warmly and personally as possible was a fitting end for Porter’s most therapeutic record.
After Porter left the stage again, the excitement in the crowd was palpable: Worlds was the only album left to go. The monstrous “Divinity” lived up to the set’s immeasurably high expectations as an opening song, with the band perfectly emulating its massive EDM-like drops while also adding new details like screechy electric guitar hits. Bassist Margot Liotta took center stage for the track, as well as the other Worlds-era songs with guest singers, with the audience erupting into cheers whenever she would begin to sing an iconic chorus. Her crooning on “Hollowheart” was particularly excellent – the hauntingly beautiful song was released this year for Worlds’ 10 year anniversary, and served as a surprise lead-in for “Language” and “Goodbye to a World.” The two fan favorite festival EDM classics were the songs I was most interested in hearing as rock songs, and they certainly delivered. Together, keyboardist Carrick McCullough and electric guitarist Rafa Rodriguez rendered the songs’ iconic synth lines to perfection, breathing new life into both.
After closing out the Worlds era with perennial hit “Sad Machine,” Porter and his band returned to perform the singular “Shelter,” his biggest hit. In a shocking reveal, original collaborator Madeon also joined the group on stage to sing the track. Despite emulating the sound of the studio version one-to-one, the mere presence of live instrumentation gave the song a new energy. It was hard to imagine a more picture-perfect finish to the show, with the band building the song to a climactic ending, Porter and Madeon harmonizing, and the crowd singing along to every word.
But once Madeon left the stage, Porter and the band still remained. “This is the true last song – whatever energy you have left, I want you to deplete it,” Porter shouted, “We’re gonna go crazy for this one. You ready?” As the crowd cheered in approval, the synth hook of “Cheerleader” suddenly roared to life. It was a bold move to end a career-spanning night with a seven month old song, but “Cheerleader” proved up to the task. With the passionate vocals of SMILE! :D, a pop-friendly synth hook akin to Nurture, and the sheer volume of a Worlds track, it was somehow able to not just stand alongside Porter’s other hits, but actually stand above them. Throughout the song, the crowd went wilder than before – whether they be a fresh face, or a decades-long fan, “Cheerleader” was the song to win over the entire Hollywood Bowl. It was all fun, all sincerity, all of the time – the perfect capstone for both the SMILE! :D chapter of Porter’s life and his career as a whole. On the song’s final chorus, confetti flew, Porter and his band belted out the loudest moment of the night, and the nonstop party drew to an end.
You can listen to SMILE! :D below:
