See more pictures from the Rusko show at Mosaic last night at http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=238978&id=539610128&ref=mf and at http://www.pitch.com/slideshow/rusko-shows-kc-how-to-move-30384119/1

On Thursday night, I threw on some nice shoes and a button down and went out to Mosaic in P&L for the Rusko show. I told myself once upon a time that I would never go back to P&L after I was kicked out at the infamous Jazzy Jeff fiasco because my pants were deemed too “baggy.” I can’t really believe I’m writing this, but this Rusko show a couple of nights ago was probably the best party KC will have seen all year by the time it’s over.

I went into this show pretty much hoping and praying that Rusko wasn’t going to play too much popstep, which is what I thought he’d do considering the stereotypical Mosaic crowd (and based on what music is floating around on the net right now). But the heads came out with a vengeance. Rusko put on a dubstep onslaught right in the middle of the Great Mall of Bars. It was odd, but tremendously fun, too. The few douche bags in the crowd that did peek their heads up out of their popped collars for however long, weren’t enough to keep P&L from getting practically raved the fuck out.

Rusko’s set, one of the best live performances I’ve seen in my life thus far (and I don’t care if it was pre-arranged or not), reminded me of Keith Murray’s hip hop show at the Record Bar in Westport a couple of years ago. The energy was, like I said, relentless. Most of the beats he played went hard as hell, and I noticed a few people at the end of the night, myself included, who were visibly soaked in their own sweat. Spinstyles and the dude who went on first (Denver), were pretty cold too.

The last time I kicked it at Mosaic was for Treasure Fingers, who does mostly house/disco influenced type stuff. At that show, there was a table placed directly in front of the dancefloor for some odd reason. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that the reason they did that was to actually keep people from dancing and retain any and all ounces of “ultra-lounge” cred they’ve got. But at this Rusko show, the table was gone and people got down.

I talked with a friend of mine who’s deep into the local dance scene a couple of weeks before this show and she said that she thought a lot of people were going to be turned away at the door for having dreads, etc. I don’t know if it discredits any hippie credibility that some of these people might’ve held onto, but I saw a lot of folks who looked like more of a Schwagstock or Wakarusa crowd, only in white button downs and ties. My dad once said that you can always dress like you’ve got more than five dollars in your pocket, however true or not in some cases. A good friend of mine, who’s a record store clerk in Midtown, said he was basically hellbent on going. Even though I didn’t see him there, that tipped me off to what I suspected all along: this show was going to, and did, bring out a lot of people who you would’ve never thought you’d catch dead in Power and Light.

One big name local event promoter I spoke with at the show said, “I need to rethink some things,” after the two of us talked about how strong the party was going. And yes my friends, this is how big dubstep is right now. We saw basically the king of dubstep right now in our own city at not necessarily the peak, but maybe the cornerstone of his career. And this show did not dissapoint one bit. If you weren’t there, you missed out in epic fashion.

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