Hippie Sabotage at Cal Coast Credit Union Amphitheater
March 29th, 2024
Feeding the Communal Heartbeat
On March 29th, the duo of brothers, formally known as “Hippie Sabotage” created an ethereal feeling night at Cal Coast Amphitheater as part of their “Enter the Unknown” tour.
They grew to fame back in 2014 with their release of “The Sunny Album.” The album was written during their time in San Diego, making this a bit of a homecoming tour. Around this time, Kevin Saurer, the main vocalist, released what was his former school project at UCSD. This is better known now as The “Habits (Stay High)” remix which continues to be their most popular and well known piece of work. What was graded to be “B-” work, launched him into an A+ career.
As someone who hasn’t worked much in electronic music, I was taken aback. Seeing a show that relied more on visuals and vibrations than performance was more powerful to my girly pop self than I could have expected. Something I’ve always heard from fans in the “soulful edm” atmosphere is that it’s the genre created to be experienced. A good friend of mine always says, “There’s nothing like feeling the beat in your body and your heart and looking to the people around you to recognize you’re all sharing a communal heartbeat.”
Hippie Sabotage makes it clear to their fans that they are their priority is connection through music. Within the first few songs, the artist came down to say hello to everyone in the front row and walked throughout the audience. I even got a little wave which, as a photographer, is pretty unheard of. The overall sense of kindness that emanated from the stage to the crowd was something more rare than I’d like to admit. The most popular comment from fans that have attended shows is about “just how kind they are to the people there.”
Between the general care for the audience and energy of their songs, they proved true the exact explanation I’ve heard of this genre time and time again. Melodic vibrations are created so that every breath becomes one and every heartbeat becomes bigger than just oneself. We are all here to connect. We are here to feel into each other's energies and vibrate on this same level. There is so much hurt in the world, but there was none to be found in that room. And what a magical thing to do through music.
Photos and words by Sarah Dinse
