Summerfest day two brought a lot of Big Gig favorites to the grounds – from Zac Brown Band at the Amp, to Bleachers, The Avett Brothers and Fitz & The Tantrums, all familiar faces to the annual lineup. Amongst all of that familiarity, though, was a wholly new and different act: Sofi Tukker – new and different not only because the EDM pop duo's Miller Lite Oasis gig marked their first Milwaukee visit, period, but because their hour-plus set delivered a wholly unexpected and unpredictable show unlike much else out there.
Even if you knew Sofi Tukker going into the night, you had no idea what was coming your way at the party thrown at the Oasis – from surprise choreographed dancing to a multi-functional jungle gym to a vigorous round of air- humping and even a fiesty competitive rivalry with our music lovers across the lake.
It was a wild and wonderful night of bright entertainment and earworm-y bops that, frankly, merited a larger gathering at the Oasis stage than just filling the main bleacher space. So, to make sure you don't miss out on them next time they bring their on-stage playground to Brew City, here are five reasons why Friday night's rocking romp ruled – and might just represent the future of electronic music.
1. A different kind of electronic show
The perception of an EDM live show, as we've known it, is dead. The era of a dude simply standing behind a table of knobs and buttons, pumping his fist while lasers, frantic light shows and a laptop do most of the work, seems on its way out, if the early electronic-leaning bookings at the Big Gig have anything to say about it. Now, it's about putting on a real, full stage show – instruments, audience engagement, the full gamut. Gryffin seemed to nod toward that, busting out a guitar and some live drum machine work during his opening night set – but Sofi Tukker took the sense of performance the extra mile and then some on Friday night.
Even before anyone took the Oasis, the audience could sense they were in for an unusual night, the stage not featuring the typical platforms, tables and screens but instead a collection of Greco-Roman pillars and ruins (complete with neon light accents) amongst playground equipment like a jungle gym and mini merry-go-round. Indeed, not the traditional staging for a show like this – and it only got less traditional when the duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern took the Pompeii playground stage, the former in a pink outfit complete with flowing robe while the latter rocked all blue highlighted with a bib that looked way too much like an old-school Marquette jersey but with "WET" on the front (a nod to their 2022 album, "Wet Tennis").
Like Gryffin the night before, the two played their instruments throughout the show – like Hawley-Weld playing the songs' catchy riffs and hooks on a rotation of guitars. Unlike Gryffin, Halpern regularly punched out his beats on ... a jungle gym rather than a typical beat machine. Yes, the on-stage monkey bars were hooked to an MPC, with Halpern hitting various rungs to make the different sounds. That Blue Man Group-like flourish wouldn't be the only extra mile gone during the show, as during the bridge portion of "Drinkee," the duo busted out some choreography, hitting synchronized head rolls and bobs. And if that choreography wasn't enough, on "Kakee," they'd be joined by a surprise quartet of impressive dancers, hitting bigger moves and choreography along with the starring pair.
Between the staging, the dancers (who would return regularly throughout the night), the instrumentation and the playful energy, Sofi Tukker's show felt like an EDM performance trying to be anything but a classic EDM performance – so much so it was almost more of a pop concert that just happened to play electronic dance beats instead of top 40 songs and remixes. No matter what genre you classified the performance as, it certainly classified as awesome.
2. Songs that slap
You may not have recognized the name Sofi Tukker on the marquee, but the pop EDM duo is classic "band you didn't know that you know" situation. Their clinking playful party bop "Best Friend" was used by Apple for their iPhone X ad campaign – an addictive hook so powerful, that several years and iPhones later, that song is still stuck in my memory bank – while other hits have made their way onto "To All the Boys," "The Flight Attendant," "You," "Yellowjackets," "Birds of Prey" and much more. So while their name's not everywhere, their music certainly has been.
And after their approximately 70-minute set on Friday night, you can understand why.
Starting with their opening song, the throbbing summery "Drinkee," the musical alchemy of Hawley-Weld and Halpern is addictive like the perfect chill sunny day cocktail – her cool disaffected vocals and rollicking guitar hooks begging for a road trip, matching his deep modulated voice and earwormy beats from across the EDM spectrum. The setlist kept supplying the slinky summer grooves, ideal for the comfortable lakefront night – from the flirty neon French number "Kakee" (complete with a killer spy movie-ready guitar riff) to the zippy sunny breeze of "Summer in New York," the bouncy EDM crunch of "Emergency" and the removed cool of the pandemic-inspired house bop "House Arrest."
Occasionally the setlist may have leaned too trance chill or high-concept (the globe-trotting set featured a number of foreign language songs and an unexpected merengue pivot in between "House Arrest" and "Emergency") for a young amped-up festival crowd perhaps looking for more basic beatdrops and familiar remixes. But for slightly more adventurous EDM and pop fans, the almost 20-song lineup was addictive bliss – and the calm rarely lasted too long, with the duo always having a strong beat, guitar riff or catchy hook not far away, closing for instance on the one-two punch of the funky "Batsh*t" and the growling, bass-wobbling smash hit "Purple Hat."
Even if you didn't know much of Sofi Tukker's work – much less their name – going into the show, you certainly did on the way out.
3. A memorable Milwaukee visit for all
While Sofi Tukker made their first Milwaukee visit last night, that wasn't the case for the concert's entire crew.
After the group's current TikTok-approved hit "Summer in New York," the duo took time to giddily reveal that one of the group's backup dancers, Kameron, was actually a Brew City native, giving him (and his little sister) the spotlight in front of his hometown – and in front of his family, cheering him on from out in the crowd. The siblings then stayed on stage for one more song, the younger joining the older in the choreography for the cheerful bop "Awoo" – though her true star moment came just before, taking the mic to proclaim: "This is the best day!" And she was right.
It'd be pretty impossible to upstage and steal the thunder from Sofi Tukker's playful show and irrepressible summery beats – but she almost pulled it off.
4. Points!
There was a lot unexpected about Sofi Tukker's Summerfest show – but the most unexpected part was how much it ended up reminding me of the ESPN sports talk show "Around the Horn." No, there were no debates about Nikola Jokic's legacy – but there was a surprising scored competition element to the concert.
You see, throughout the night, Halpern assessed points to the crowd, tallied on a digital scoreboard behind the stage, based on participation, enthusiasm, all-around rowdiness and ... well, any other arbitrary reason. But while the points are arbitrary, there was a goal to racking them up: Early on, Halpern informed the Big Gig crowd that their previous show – the Electric Forest Festival on the other side of Lake Michigan just the night before – earned 25 points on the night, taunting their Milwaukee audience to beat their fellow Midwesterners. In a night full of over-the-top ideas and heightened poppy showmanship, this "Who's Line Is It Anyway"-like "contest" was probably the most obviously shticky element – but it was a playful (and effective) way to keep the audience active and engaged no matter if a song or two weren't the crowd's tempo.
And most importantly, we beat Electric Forest. Consider it payback for last season's Packers/Lions games ...
5. A truly unique, full-entertainment night
When I review a concert, after audio quality, the number one thing I look for is getting a show. I want to feel like the artists worked hard to put on a one-of-a-kind night to remember. And that's exactly what Sofi Tukker delivered on Friday night. The setlist was outstanding, setting a perfect summer soundtrack to a perfect summer night on the lake – and between the musicianship on instruments conventional and far less so, the surprisingly hyperactive stage production, the full-power twerking and thrusting, details like the Milwaukee dancer's return and personalizing the lyrics of "Summer in New York" with Milwaukee, Sofi Tukker put on a show to remember – or, to borrow Halpern's game, a show at least worth four points.
As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.
When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.
