Story by: Colin Hudson

Photos by: Jess StewartMaize

The word “legendary” isn’t thrown around too often, but when it comes to producers who have been breaking ground and redefining year in and year out for almost two decades, I’m not afraid to hint at it. Infected Mushroom brought its insane new Animatronica live show to Portland late last month and showed no signs of slowing down or easing up. They are continually bringing in a new generation of fans while still holding on to the ones who jumped on when from the first album released in 1999.

This isn’t their first live tour, but it has grown over the few years. There are more guitar solos and bigger drum presence, Amit Duvdevani has grown into a natural front man and lead singer. Most importantly, they’ve added all this while staying true to their hard hitting, bass driven psytrance that has put them on top of the electronic scene for the past decade.

This was apparent right from the beginning when they played “The Pretender,” their famed Foo Fighters cover shortly into their set. It’s easy to see their punk and metal inspirations during this song, especially with the guitarist (who looks like a young Slash) is ripping his way through every transition so naturally, you’d think you’re watching an 80’s hair metal video. That is until you notice the giant robotic mushroom sitting behind the stage and the field of lasers that move alongside founding member Erez Eisen’s synthesizer and mixer.

Midway through the set, Infected Mushroom reached back to their 2009, highly successful, Legend of the Black Shawarma and whipped out “Saeed.” The build ups were only intensified by Amit’s muscular build and bald head jumping around and pushing the energy from the stage right into the crowd before bringing it back to the microphone.

While the majority of their songs were from newer material, they stayed classic for a short while and played the smash hit “Cities of the Future.” The audience was fully entranced by this point and the hollow dance floor at the Crystal Ballroom was moving so vibrantly, there was no choice but to dance. Around all the madness, they still managed to slow things down and play “Rise Up” before encoring with a medley of hip hop and drawn out instrumental sections including one last guitar shredding.

When it comes down to it, Infected Mushroom puts on the type of show that reminds you why you started listening to electronic music in the first place. They’re masters at pulsating you through their show and controlling intense rushes of liveliness throughout the entire room. Hell, even the security guards were nodding their heads and moving a little. On top of that, after the encore they jumped off stage to greet the front row of their audience. That's class. If not now, sometime in the future, we might call them legends.

There, I said it.