“If you like to have sex make some noise!”, screamed Trevor Dahl of Cheat Codes during their Saturday night concert at Boston College. While technically advertised as a concert by the Campus Activities Board, Cheat Codes’ performance would be more accurately labelled as a rave. With spazing strobes, bass drops, and dollar bills regularly shooting into the crowd, it’s no wonder the crowd became incredibly rowdy.
The trio that makes up Cheat Codes (Trevor Dahl, Matthew Russell, and KEVI) is currently on a world tour, but it played without any of its collaborating acts through the course of the night. As a result, the DJs
had to rely on remixes, hard bass drops, and most surprisingly, a lot of crowd interaction to make up for the lack of artists such as Demi Lovato and Fetty Wap. Over the course of the night, one of the three members, Dahl, stepped out from behind the podium to pump-up the crowd. The other two DJs also exited the podium on occasion, but Dahl went above and beyond by crowd-surfing, holding students’ hands, and tossing dollar bills into the audience. Whenever Dahl’s presence was impending, the audience reacted by swamping into the area. There was no escape.
The live performance varied greatly from their studio recordings. Cheat Codes’ recorded music is known for its distinguishing clean sound, upbeat vibe, and mild drops. It an easy listen for those that like electronic music and the DJ style. This weekend, they intensified their stage presence by relying on much harsher drops and remixes of popular songs. They played remixes of songs such as “Mask Off” by Future and “Peanut Butter Jelly” by Galantis intermixed with their own content. These remixes managed to hype up the audience more than their personal material.
The members of Cheat Codes were there to facilitate fun, energize the crowd, and leave audience members exhausted after a night of jumping around. As a whole, they were successful, though it’s unfortunate their remixes of popular songs seemed to do the job better than their own material.