Dillon Francis: He Came, He Raved, He AMAZED Philadelphia Fans

I arrived at the Electric Factory at the very beginning of the concert, and noticed an unusually large crowd already lined up at the door. Shows particularly at this venue don't seem to fill up until about an hour or two into the concert, so this was a clear sign to me that there was going to be an insane amount of people attending tonight. I later discovered that not only was it an all ages event which have a tendency to be more crowded anyway, but that it had also sold out before the event started! Knowing this, I mentally prepared myself for an army of young, ecstatic, screaming teenage girls. I claimed my spot at the back of the venue on a raised up bench, (which is honestly probably one of the best views in the venue unless you're part of the 21+ crowd in which case the balcony is definitely the way to go if you're avoiding the mosh pit) and watched the large room fill up at an incredibly rapid pace. I should have known that, Dillon Francis having over 4 million followers on Soundcloud, would undoubtedly be one wild, memorable night.

Dillon Francis rose to fame after his first big single "Masta Blasta" was released as an upbeat moombahton track. Contrary to popular belief, he is not the father of moombahton. Many think he created this edm sub-genre, but really the credit should go to Dave Nada. The concept of moombahton involves combining origins of reggae, dancehall, and house/dance music elements to create songs with a lower tempo that make it hard not to dance to. Dillon adopted this concept and applied it to his music which became heavily supported and promoted by veteran dance music producer, Diplo. Francis's single "Something, Something, Awesome" became the first moombahton track to land the number one spot on Beatport's release charts. Dillon is signed with Diplo's Mad Decent record label, which is also home to a plethora of other renown producers listed in the chart below. Mad Decent was born in Philadelphia but really became popular in the EDM community through publicity in Los Angeles, CA. My hometown is Philadelphia and I couldn't be happier about that because since it is the true birthplace of Mad Decent, their nation wide tour always makes its way back to our city of brotherly love every summer.

Dillon Francis may have been the show's headliner, but both opening producers TJR and Hoodboi did a fantastic job hyping up the crowd during the first half of the concert. Hoodboi played mostly electro house/club music, while TJR rocked a fair amount of melbourne bounce music as well as electro house. So by the time TJR finished and it came time for Dillon to play, it seemed to me that the crowd was kind of slowing down from the crazy amount of house music that kept them dancing from the very start. They certainly proved me wrong as soon as the lights went dark and Dillon appeared on stage. I honestly think the volume of screaming girls exceeded the 100,000 watts of sound the Electric Factory's sound system is capable of exerting. His set was truly exhilarating from the first beat to the very last. The audience never seemed to get tired of dancing and jumping to his bouncy moombahton tunes. I personally have seen Dillon Francis four times now, and he has truthfully never disappointed me. He always adds a different flare to each of his sets whether it be a crazy stage set up, insane visuals on a giant screen behind him, or simply dropping clips of different genres of music like dubstep and trap. Needless to say, his performances are spectacular and never, ever result in an unhappy crowd.