Tiësto delivers electrifying performance

Face paint and white- and neon-colored outfits seemed to be the unofficial dress code when Tïesto invaded the Whittemore Center Friday night. The concert, rescheduled from October, was the DJ’s fourth stop on his 2013 Club Life College Invasion Tour.

According to Tour Manager Mathis Cobbaut, the famous DJ hopes to make multiple appearances on college campuses, trying to visit as many as possible.

“Tïesto recognizes that a lot of (his fans) are on campuses,” Cobbaut said. “During the college tour, he wanted to hit as many schools as possible.” 

Tïesto himself was unavailable for comment. 

The night featured three openers starting at 8 p.m. with DJ Joe Bermudas, a local DJ out of the Boston area. He was excited to be a part of the Tïesto group, if only for the night.

“He’s kind of the biggest DJ on the planet,” he said. 

According to thedjlist.com, Tïesto is the No. 2 DJ in the world, the first being David Guetta. 

The two other openers, who will be with Tïesto for the entirety of the tour, were DJs Quintino and Tommy Trash.

Quintino was also enthusiastic about the opportunity and the chance to see the energy from the audience.

“Every night there are big reactions,” he said. 

And there were. 

It was with the arrival of Tïesto at approximately 10:30 p.m. that the packed floor and stadium seats went crazy, jumping up and down in unison to the beat of the bass. 

For days and weeks before the event, students could be seen haggling one another for any extra tickets by word of mouth and social media. Juniors Mike McManus and Andy Wigger were lucky enough to both score free tickets. McManus has a girlfriend abroad who couldn’t use the ticket, and Wigger got one from his sister.

“It worked out for all of us,” Wigger said. “It’s going to be something else.”

It was. 

A laser show, smoke and pyrotechnics all worked together to provide a visual array of hues and textures, not to mention the life-sized screen behind him that flashed audience cues, colors and lyrics. 

Many a time throughout the show, boys knelt down and lifted girls on their shoulders, all of whom pumped their hands high with palms facing the stage, seemingly against invisible walls, to the beat of the music. One of those girls was freshman Alejandra Herrera. 

“I went on this guy’s shoulders and started just dancing,” she said. “(I) could see everything.”

Security, though, was proceeding its way through the crowds, asking students to come down off of shoulders. The concert featured a number of security and police officers for safety reasons.

“I had to get down (of the boys’ shoulders) because a security guard didn’t approve,” Herrera said. “But it was so fun at the time!” 

In fact, the university hasn’t seen any concerts since last year, so the amount of security workers was perhaps more of a routine.

“My opinion of the number of police/security was that it was necessary and not out of the ordinary,” said acting Executive Director of SCOPE Bethany Bucciarelli. “This is a college campus who hasn’t seen a concert since May 2012 at UNH, so being overly cautious is never a bad thing. It is better to have excess than not enough in the event that something did go wrong.”

Before the show, UNH Health Services teamed with Substance Awareness through Functional Education to provide a “Pre-Tïesto Pizza Party.” Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Educator / Counselor Melissa Garvey explained that the initiative was to give students an alternative to drinking, or, if they chose to drink, an option to quell their alcohol before the show.

“We want to make sure they’re hydrated and their stomachs are full,” she said. 

Dominoes delivered 200 pizzas for the event, 150 of which were 100 percent donated. 

In addition to the pizza party, Health Services worked with the Whittemore Center to assure that there was an increase of cups at the “hydration station” on the floor of the Whittemore Center.

Throughout the entire night, the station was mobbed by thirsty concertgoers looking for any sip of water to send them back into the mosh pit for the rest of the evening. 

With the bass dropping, the audience lifted, becoming a sea of jumping minions during the introduction of each new song.

The concert ended at approximately 12:30 a.m. as the remix of ‘Maximal Crazy’ began to fade with final lasers reaching into the audience.