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Big Night Live was packed to the brim on Saturday with club-goers eager to see Benny Benassi, a founding father of electro house music. Best known for his hit song “Satisfaction,” originally released in 2002, Benassi’s music and style continue to have a strong hold on today’s club music.

To start off the night, openers and Boston natives Pete Summers and Ryan Nichols warmed up the crowd until Benassi came on at 12:30 a.m. Summers played a mix of dance EDM and house whereas Nichols focused primarily on tech house. Both sets were well mixed and included fun pop-culture visuals such as an animated Moo Deng, Hasbullah, and a GTA-themed, Just Dance-esque screen. Highlights of the opening set included adding a distorted layered bass and looping effect to Hozier’s “Too Sweet” by Summers and using risers and synth on Waka Flocka Flame’s “Fuck the Club Up” by Nichols.

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After Nichols finished laying the groundwork, Benassi entered, embracing Nichols and then taking over the deck to open with a booming bass rendition of “Born Slippy” by Underworld. Benassi started with some harder-hitting beats that featured heavy electronic bass accompanied by pink strobe lights to get the crowd going. He briefly toned it down to play “Sweet Disposition – John Summit & Silver Panda Remix” originally by The Temper Trap, a song that was originally indie rock but was transformed into a progressive trance hit by Summit adding a thumping bassline and emphasizing the hypnotizing vocals. The tone down was a successful setup for Benassi’s signature song “Satisfaction.”

Benassi quickly built the energy back up to play “Satisfaction,” teasing the crowd by interrupting the opening synth-heavy bassline with a robotic voice saying “satisfaction” slowly over and over until he restarted the build with the iconic repetition of “push” and finally dropped the bass to the release of fog cannons and silver confetti. By departing from the standard flow of the song, Benassi effectively emphasized the liveliness of the performance, ensuring the audience didn’t leave feeling like the set was something they could have heard through their headphones at home.

Benassi moved on to brilliantly overlay “Kernkraft 400 – Sport Chant Stadium Remix” by Zombie Nation with “Day N’ Nite” by Kid Cudi, a combination that can only be described as perfectly logical. Although the song only lasted a brief moment, this was a prominent feature in the set because it mixed a semi-familiar beat with a famous song in a way that was original but still made sense. Benassi did minimal crowd work and let the music speak for itself, occasionally turning it down to prompt the crowd to sing along.

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Throughout the night Benassi seamlessly mixed well-known songs like the 2024 FISHER remix of “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye and Kimbra with lesser-known but equally intoxicating songs like “Along Came Polly (Konstantin Sibold, ZAC, CARMEE Remix)” by Rebūke and “Wimbo” by Heerhorst. The set was the perfect combination of popular club classics and songs that prompted a mid-club Shazam, keeping partiers engaged and anticipating what was next.

Benassi wrapped up the show playing two of his classic remixes “Cinema (feat. Gary Go) – Radio Edit” and “Beautiful People – (feat. Benny Benassi) Radio Edit” by Chris Brown. Finally, Benassi toned down the night with a remix of “Into You” by Ariana Grande and thanked Boston for the “amazing energy.” He walked off the stage, waving to the crowd he captivated for an hour and a half to chants of “Benny.” Benassi’s set flawlessly exemplified how to mix the old with the new while keeping the show engaging for people of all levels of house music knowledge.

—Staff writer Gillian H. Selig can be reached at gillian.selig@thecrimson.com.