Las Vegas Weekly

July 20, 2009 · 1:43 PM

In case you missed it: Villains in Vegas

By Deanna Rilling

Villains at Club 4427 on July 18. Windex for the DJ booth partition was not in their rider.

Photo: Deanna Rilling

The former Frozen 75 teen dance club, now Club 4427, was a hot and sticky little strip mall venue Friday night. Packed to the brim, the 18 and up crowd was anxiously awaiting Mad V and Koncept—aka dance music burgeoning stars Villains—to begin their set.

“Our music is really big with the 18 and over crowd,” said Koncept of how the gig came to fruition. “[4427] just hit us up.”

Added Mad V, “I like these events because the kids are a lot more excited and want to dance, where the older crowds sometimes don’t.”

Inside the small room almost everyone was moving and no one seem to mind that the only club lighting was a blue spinning police light or that sweat poured off even stationary attendees.

The duo is currently working on their first full-length artist album. While their music has been described as electro, the label can’t describe the energy and diversity they bring to the turntables as exemplified Friday night.

“Electro is a part of what we did starting out, but it’s just a small chapter of what we do now,” explained Koncept. “We’ve gone through so many genres and we try to stay honest and genuine.”

“We know why we do what we do and our influences. We just move with the music and take what we like from the ‘70s to now.” He and Mad V cite inspiration coming from groups like Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Justice, Daft Punk, Nirvana and Michael Jackson.

“We’re both music sponges,” said Mad V. “We listened to everything growing up.”

The mostly young crowd at 4427 also acted as sponges and soaked up anything thrown at them by Villains—a refreshing reminder dancing without getting drunk is possible.

And the duo has dabbled in remixing popular songs, too. “We like the Britney Spears remix we did,” added Koncept, “but we’ve actually only played it once.”

“We don’t typically play mainstream,” Mad V. explained.

New listeners may want to check out their remix of Edison Gem’s “Things Change” instead for a taste of what Villains are really capable of. Fans can download the Second Offence mix from Villains’ MySpace page for free, which features “Things Change” as the closing track.

When they climbed into the DJ booth, the Villains played with as much fervor and excitement as if they were back in LA at Electric Daisy Carnival last year, even though the damp, dark room was a far cry from a massive electronic music festival. Here’s hoping they return to Vegas again soon, preferably to play somewhere larger, more air-conditioned and where the 21 and up club crowd can get a good Villains taste.

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