Making his Austin tour stop, internationally known house DJ Bad Boy Bill took to the stage Friday night at Republic Live. While electronic music struggles in the US, you never would have known it on Friday. The venue, which holds 700, was overflowing with an eclectic crowd and thundering house music.

The full report, including some funny moments is below the break. A small gallery of pictures is at the bottom of the post.

The Good
Republic Live has excellent sound and lighting. The bass boomed viscerally and lights were firing off everywhere. The venue and NightCulture put on a technically brilliant event. Little things like people handing out glowsticks, bright visuals on screens throughout the venue, go go dancers, and a VIP section were nice extra touches.

Bad Boy Bill and opener Nick Rockwell, both from Chicago, played excellent sets of four-on-the-floor house music. One of the highlights was a fantastic remix of “Thriller” just before Bad Boy Bill took the stage. The crowd went wild and it was a perfect warm up for the eventual frenzy when Bill took over. Chants of “Bad Boy” nearly overpowered the music at one point.

From an event point of view, no real flaws were noticeable. All of the elements were there: good logistics, a packed house, great music, dazzling visuals. Everything in the Bad and Funny sections can safely be ignored when a show is put on this well. Don’t ignore them, however, there were definitely some funny moments.

The Bad
My only gripe was the hour I waited near the entrance for one of the promoters to give me a wristband to take pictures from the stage. I had no problem waiting, but she never showed up. I finally had to ask another person about it, he told me no one was allowed to take pictures from the stage. That wouldn’t have been a problem, except there were no less than three other photographers on stage without the wristband I supposedly needed.

The Funny
The mix of people was unintentionally hilarious. Republic Live is in the heart of the Warehouse District, so you’d expect the typical crowd of overly made-up girls and guys in graphic print button-up shirts and Affliction shirts (with just a little too much hair gel). They were definitely there, but there were also some under 21 hippy raver kids to provide humorous juxtaposition. A few people were spinning glowsticks on strings right next to tables of seasoned bottle-service only types. Funny stuff.

The older photographer who took maybe two shots of the DJs and crowd. He focused his time and camera on the go go dancers and nothing else. They were definitely attractive and I snapped a few shots, to be sure. However, unless he was tasked specifically to shoot the dancers, which is possible but doubtful, it was beyond creepy. We’re talking hundreds of pictures. Essentially, he was an added lighting feature with his flash firing off over and over and over.

The poor girl who took a header right into the massive subwoofer as she was trying to climb it. A rather busty girl in too-tight jeans was climbing everything she could. She just wanted to dance at altitude. While climbing one, she lost both glowsticks as her face hit the top of the speaker cabinet. She was fine and jumped up to dance but security quickly got her down. She asked me to dance on the speaker with her, beckoning me forward with an outstretched hand. One glance at the burly security guard, who shook his head once, and I politely declined.