The crowd roared in unison as the band members struck their first chord. All eyes were glued to the stage. The beat slowly built and after much anticipation, it intensified and dropped like an exploding grenade. Hundreds in the crowd were overtaken by the infectious rhythm.

‘There was a war out there,’ said Conspirator’s guitarist Chris Michetti. ‘We won the battle tonight. It was a fun battle.’

Electronica band Conspirator performed at the Westcott Theater on Thursday night for a crowd of more than 300, said Casey Jarrett, box office manager. Thursday night’s crowd was predominantly college-aged.

In the electronica world, Conspirator has become a household name. Two members of the popular jam band The Disco Biscuits, keyboardist Aron Magner and bassist Marc Brownstein, formed the band in 2004 alongside producer DJ Omen.

With the addition of guitar prodigy Chris Michetti of RAQ, Conspirator is no longer an electronic duo. The band is fluent in dubstep, electro house, drum and bass, house and drumstep, fully encompassing the umbrella genre of electronica. Brownstein said the tempo determines what genre a song will fall under, each having a distinct pace and sound.

‘They’re versatile, that’s why kids like them,‘saidJesse Spitzer, a senior forest health major at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

The band performed newly released tracks ‘Seek Bromance’ and ‘Gypsy Lane,’ along with older EPs, like ‘Velvet Red.’ The crowd went wild for ‘Feed the Wolf,’ enthusiastically jumping up and down. Darren Shearer of The New Deal and Mike Greenfield of Lotus alternated playing drums.

Conspirator can no longer be considered a mere side project. Within a week of releasing EP ‘Seek Bromance,’ the track has been downloaded 10,899 times with more than 36,000 plays on the website SoundCloud, where the band makes their music available.

Because Conspirator is a conglomerate of musicians from other well-established bands, some fans have become uncomfortable with the style of music it has chosen to embody, Brownstein said.

‘The reason they’re begrudging us for liking it is because we’re the people who make the music that they like, and they’re afraid we’re gonna start making music they don’t like,’ Brownstein said. 

However, there are some fans that still enjoy both bands.

‘I’m a fan of all the musicians onstage. When they’re all together, everyone hates on them,’ Sara Snodgrass of Scranton, Pa., said. ‘But when they’re playing together, it is definitely something that is substantial, something that should be heard.’

Brownstein expressed his enthusiasm for electronic music’s resurgence in the mainstream after a decade-long hiatus. Despite the growing competition, Brown expressed his excitement for the increasingly popular music.

‘This new music is so nasty, I’m excited that it’s progressing again,’ Brownstein said. ‘There was like a 10-year lag, and now the young kids came along and showed all of us older guys what’s next, and now it’s if you can make it, you can make it, and if you can’t, you can’t.’

gmsarzyn@syr.edu

Published on October 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm