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Breakthrough EDM star Fred brought his highly anticipated “Places We've Never Been Tour” to Wisconsin on Saturday for his first show in the state.

The Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy is a venue they probably shouldn't have booked.

British-born Frederick John Philip Gibson, a protégé of Brian Eno and former songwriter and producer for Ed Sheeran and others, has flipped the script on EDM and become an industry phenomenon in the process.

With his first album, Actual Life, in April 2021 – at a time when the pandemic still prevented mass gatherings – Fred resurfaced. Lyrics – were an immediately noticeable summary of a messed up and frightening time.

Equally interested in moving people both emotionally and physically, he also applied that touch to two “Actual Life” sequels and this month's album “Ten Days,” earning a Grammy nomination for best new artist.

His transition to the live act was smart. Fred again… made a splash with underplays in small venues at his first US concerts in late 2021 and made a splash with unconventional pop-up shows, including one at a Chinese restaurant. That led to a headlining stint at Bonnaroo this year and a blockbuster show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum being announced in June with just four days' notice. According to Billboard, it sold 65,100 tickets and grossed $6.4 million, surpassed only by the Rolling Stones.

All of which made booking the Alpine Valley Music Theater seem like a bizarre and unexpected misstep. Initially, two dates were announced for the tour. If it were limited to one, there would be no way that capacity would have been reached. On Saturday evening, there were still empty seats in the 7,500-seat covered pavilion and the huge lawn was mostly empty; On Sunday morning, almost 50% of the pavilion seats were still available for the Sunday show. It probably didn't help sales that Fred hosted another pop-up show in Chicago last week at the more intimate ballroom of Byline Bank Aragon.

And the only other time Alpine hosted EDM in 2022, a festival run by Griz, the Live Nation-operated venue actually apologized, with Griz posting on social media that he was talking about “policing” in East Troy “more as upset” is the venue. That could also have deterred ticket sales for Fred Again.

But again Fred…his passion was undeterred by the sparse crowd. And he showed in a 97-minute set on Saturday that the hype is certainly justified.

There were the familiar, large-format extras that have become standard at EDM shows. On several occasions, Fred and his stage partner Tony Friend were enveloped in clouds of mist and flooded with blinding lights that flanked both sides of the stage and above them in a horseshoe pattern.

And the beats could be relentless and intoxicating. “Rumble,” Fred's collaboration with Flowdan and frequent collaborator and fellow EDM superstar Skrillex, was a highlight, appearing in a 25-minute segment that featured Fred and Friend just inches away from the fans on the B stage behind performed at the seating pavilion – Fred ended up performing at two of them. Fred unleashed the bass-rattling synth stabs so fast and furious that he was completely out of breath by the end of the song.

“Places to be,” a standout track from “Ten Days,” was another setlist highlight on Saturday. An otherworldly glitch rhythm introduced the collaboration between Anderson .Paak and CHIKA, with the beats becoming more distinct two minutes into the track, which ended two minutes later with an exciting slowdown over CHIKA's repeated refrain, “I beadjustin' my speed.”

But as cinematic as “Places to Be” felt on Saturday – like many other Fred tracks, “Play”-era Moby comes to mind – the most arresting image was the opposite: footage of .Paak casually singing the song sings and films herself on the phone, walking through a city street.

And that was a recurring visual motif on Saturday: The video screens are all vertical, resemble smartphone screens, and show everyday, visually unfiltered scenes of people in nature or in cities and of artists casually singing or rapping. There were even several instances where text, often with misspellings and lowercase letters, appeared before a live video of Fred, expressing his appreciation – and sometimes his insecurities – similar to watching a TikTok video or an Instagram Reels.

Much of live EDM is fueled by big-city spectacle. Fred, on the other hand… is the opposite. His music, his power, is fueled by the intimacy and vulnerability found in the everyday lives of his social media-saturated fans.

That wasn't the only way Fred touched a different nerve on Saturday. It took a whopping seven minutes to even get a beat into his set, which instead began with Fred's pretty, pensive piano runs and fragile falsetto vocals behind the piped-in vocal sample for “Kyle (i Found You)” from the first. “Actual Life” album. Even after those seven minutes, the beat was still modest, building to aggressive, pulse-quickening bass slaps a full 13 minutes after Fred had even taken the stage.

The lyrics also cut against the grain, often fleeting lines that subtly convey fears and joy.

“Sabrina (i am a party)”, also from the debut album, was the standout on Saturday in this regard. The live presentation began with slam poet Sabrina Benaim's performance of “Explaining My Depression to My Mother,” the defining example of the title. with a visceral delivery of the lines “Anxiety holds me hostage in my house, in my head” that hits harder than any bass drop. It was hardly party stuff, but in Fred's hands, Saturday's cathartic dance banger following the unadorned poetry performance reached a level of profundity and intimacy all too often glossed over by his peers.

And when the time came for the end of Saturday's set, Fred relied not on bouncy beats to say goodbye, but on a touching singalong – “Put Your Loving Arms Around Me” from “Billie (Loving Arms”) from Actual Life 2. It was more powerful than any standard EDM show finale.

Given weak ticket sales, it's likely that Alpine Valley is not a place Fred will play again. But his show at Alpine Valley on Saturday proved he was at the top of the EDM A-list Is the place where he should be.

3 takeaways from Fred Again's Alpine Valley Music Theater concert

  • For Live Nation and Fred's team, Saturday's smaller crowd was probably a disappointment, but for the fans, it was a blessing. My drive to Alpine was never easier as I arrived at the venue at around 7:20pm, forty minutes before showtime, with no traffic from County Road D (or beyond). I was able to park in the general parking lot closer to the entrance than ever before, and getting out after the show was also hassle-free.
  • Crowds were so light that I was actually able to get a phone signal all night on Saturday, and the comparatively hassle-free experience, coupled with the cool temperatures, showcased the appeal of Alpine at its best. I doubt Live Nation would ever do this, but limiting bookings to acts that draw maybe 10,000 to 12,000 people on Saturday like Fred Again… and avoiding superstars that draw over 35,000 people like Noah Kahan and Post Malone – would make attending a concert more difficult Alpine Show immensely better.
  • Even though the parking lot had plenty of extra space and parking at Alpine is generally free, I still saw a lot of people walking along County Road D in the dark after the concert, probably because their cars were parked who knows where. Maybe try to avoid the quotes that were reported to Griz? However, the smell of marijuana that wafted into the seating bowl before Fred took the stage again was quite strong, so some fans were clearly unconcerned.

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or [email protected]. Follow him to X @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

On By John Fenwick

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