Kaskade made his long awaited debut at 1st Mariner Arena last night in Baltimore.  I say long awaited debut because ClubGlow has been promoting and advertising this show for months now, and it seemed to pay off because the arena was packed with people of all ages.  Treasure Fingers was one of the supporting acts at this show on the tour and played a great set of the house I know him for. It was a little awkward for the first 20 – 30 minutes of his set because the large lights above the seated sections were on, but once they turned off there was cheering from the crowd and dancing for everyone who arrived early enough to enjoy Treasure Fingers.

Next up was the insane bass music of 12th Planet. I wasn’t sure how the crowd would react having to go from Treasure Fingers house / disco sound to 12th Planet’s set of heavy bass and dubstep tracks and then back to the Kaskade performance style, but everyone seemed to love it. I personally liked the majority of the tracks in 12th Planet’s set, ranging from the new Doctor P track “License” to several of his new tracks from his latest EP “The End Is Near.”

All the iPhone pictures are far from perfect, but you can tell the entire seated areas on the lower level were packed, while the people on the arena floor had plenty of room in the back.

There was one problem that was a surprise to many last night, the majority of fans in attendance were not allowed to make their way to the floor of the 1st Mariner Arena. The Baltimore City Fire Marshall required that sometime during or after 12th Planet that no more people were allowed to be on the floor of the arena and were going to have to stay in the seated sections of the arena. I couldn’t imagine going to this show and being required to stay in a seat or even standing in front of it the whole time. For those of us who made it to the arena floor before this happened we had to stay on the lower level because if we left there was no guarantee we would be able to make it back down. There were somewhere around 12,000 tickets sold to this event, and around 2,000 people on the floor before it was closed, so about 10,000 people spent the entire show in a seated section of the arena, I personally thankful I made it there early enough to enjoy the entire show and stay on the arena floor, but couldn’t imagine what I would have done if some event security guy told me I couldn’t go enjoy the show on the bottom level. I am still amazed a riot didn’t start with the majority of the fans never making it to the real dance floor on the lower level.

The crowd was energetic when the lights went dark and the sheet that was covering Kaskade’s massive setup fell. He played all of his biggest tracks out now and a few of his older gems that are still played today. One of my favorites would have to be DJ Icey’s mash up of Ladi Dadi that I was unaware of until a friend of mine went to the same show in Philadelphia the night before and told me about. Kaskade had an amazing stage setup with four large screens that would separate and come together during the performance.

I would have to say this Kaskade performance was the best i have seen to date. I have seen him at Ultra Music Fest the last 2 years, IDentity fest last year and for some reason this was just an all around epic performance. After releasing large balloons into the crowd and blasting confetti until everyone was covered in it, he came down from his large “DJ Booth” and took a picture right in front of the crowd. He signaled to the crowd he would play one more song, and of course it was “I Remember” with Deadmau5. After listening to that song a thousand times it is still amazing to hear live in person when you’ve been jumping around and dancing to all his other epic bangers for hours. I paid 50$ for the ticket to this show, which isn’t cheap but theres a reason for it and Kaskade is one of the few people i would actually pay that much to see again and again.