They Got the Moves: Electric Callboy Take Over a Sold-Out Brooklyn Paramount
Tuesday night was not the first time Electric Callboy has taken over New York City, but their insane popularity as part metal show, part EDM rave, and full-blown party drew a sold-out crowd to Brooklyn Paramount. The German outfit brought Scene Queen and Polaris in support for this second-to-last U.S. stop on the TANZNEID World Tour.
Arriving early to secure my credentials, I connected with a couple of friends and did some people watching. Fans arrived in some very committed costumes, some mimicking the absurd outfits Electric Callboy are known for. Others did their own thing entirely like the Moshing Squid, who later would be impossible to miss as he thrashed around in a sea of people.
SCENE QUEEN
Los Angeles-based Scene Queen opened the night with her self-coined brand of bimbocore, best described as a pop-leaning, Barbie-pink metalcore with heavy breakdowns and raunchy lyrics. The riffs hit, but on the large stage of the Paramount, the overall aesthetic didn't quite land.
Three members spread across the full width of the stage left the set feeling oddly sparse, the space between them swallowed up some of the momentum the music was trying to build. Combined with the room still filling up as people filtered in from work, it was a distraction more than anything else.
POLARIS
A few conversations before their set made clear that plenty of people were there specifically to see Polaris. The Australian metalcore group was not a band fans were willing to miss. The anticipation was well placed, as the band delivered a powerful set and one very much in contrast to Scene Queen. The pit opened up early and stayed open.
After my three songs at the barricade, I made my way into the crowd and experienced one of the highlights of the evening. A young kid has an impromptu mosh pit opened up around him, assisted by that Moshing Squid, of course.
Fans circled up, cheered him on, and then sent him crowd surfing toward the stage. His parents, who had been at Sonic Temple the week before, loved every minute of it. Pretty sure I caught his dad crowd surfing a few times too. They are clearly raising their family right!
By the time Polaris wrapped their set, the crowd was loosened up and the adrenaline was flowing. Electric Callboy had a room that was ready to explode.
ELECTRIC CALLBOY
All it took to ignite the room after a quick set change was dropping the massive TANZNEID banner that had been hanging behind the openers. What followed was one of the most absurd and wild parties this room has ever hosted, complete with confetti cannons, CO2 blasts, strobes, and an enormous video screen pulsing with visuals.
Electric Callboy has always been known for their outlandish music videos, and Tuesday night the stage was an extension of that world. As they worked through their catalog alongside new material, they burned through at least six outfit changes: futuristic vests, overalls & white t-shirts, track suits, 80s workout gear, disco ball helmets, and bowl-cut wigs!
Kevin Ratajczak and Nico Sallach traded off on vocals, both clean and with screams that could rival any of today's metalcore headliners. As the grandmasters of the spectacle, their lighthearted crowd work between songs kept everyone from the barricade to the back of the room engaged. Keep scrolling for a bonus gallery of amazing crowd shots!
For a few songs I put my camera away and got lost in the chaos of the pit, only to find one of the friends who originally introduced me to the band. There is no better feeling than hearing an act live after sharing them on car rides.
As the crowd cheered on Frank Zummo during an extended drum solo, the stage crew quietly brought a piano and acoustic setup into the middle of the floor. Surrounded on all sides by fans, the band invited everyone to kneel down and put their phones away so those in the back could see and everyone could just be present. A few thousand people packed in close, all facing inward, it gives you goosebumps.
They closed the acoustic set with their viral cover of "Everytime We Touch." It was the perfect way to slow things down before closing out with their biggest hits, "Elevator Operator," "RATATATA," "Spaceman," and "We Got The Moves."
There is something worth noting about the audience Electric Callboy draws. EDM and metal are two of the most tribal communities in music, both fiercely loyal, both with their own codes and cultures. But Tuesday evening at Brooklyn Paramount, those two scenes didn't collide, they morphed into one massive body of purely positive energy. When the house lights came up, the chant dop-död-död-dop, dop-död-död-dop was still going, spilling out the doors and into the subway where people were catching the train home.
Next up for Electric Callboy is the release of TANZNEID on August 7, followed by continued World Tour dates across Europe and Japan later this year, a run through Australia, and back into Europe in 2027.
Didn’t see yourself in the galleries above? Check out our bonus gallery below for more crowd-surfing and mosh pit chaos! If you spot yourself, we want to hear from you! Let us know in the comments!
