Revelers lined up at Rivers Casino on Saturday night in their best club wear — with a generous sprinkling of “GTL” T-shirts thorwn in. This wasn’t a typical night of partying; they were here to see a “Jersey Shore” legend.
Paul “DJ Pauly D” DelVecchio reached the heights of international fame in the early 2010s with MTV’s reality show “Jersey Shore,” allowing viewers a glimpse into the lives of a cast of young people in a New Jersey vacation home. But outside of the show, Pauly D has fostered a career behind the turntabes for more than 15 years.
Whether the crowd on Saturday night was into his music or just really big “Jersey Shore” fans didn’t matter — they still sold out the Rivers Casino Event Center, forming a line that snaked halfway around the casino floor as they waited for the doors to open at 8 p.m.
Unfortunately, that crop of early birds had some time to wait. DJ Pauly D didn’t take the stage until about 10:15, after — I can only imagine — quite a few feet had already grown sore in their going-out shoes.
There was plenty of entertainment in the meantime. As soon as the room started to fill, DJ Cake took the stage and set a perfect tone for the evening. Keenly sensing the age range present, she moved through decades’ worth of party jams with a special attention paid to millennials (to this writer’s delight). What American adult who graduated late in the second Bush administration wouldn’t be excited to hear Fergie’s “London Bridge” rapped over the beat to Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss,” after all?
That early crowd didn’t need to get several drinks in to sing along loudly with both Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” or Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” underscoring just how many adults and their adult kids came to party together.
DJ Cake played an hour and a half of hits, followed up by K.Gianni, who leaned much more into the electronic dance music side of DJing, bringing her own springy, bumping beats to hits including “A Milli” by Lil Wayne. Her highlight was pulling apart AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” and stitching it back together, with thumping bass and a brand new rhythm added in. The song was still a fiery classic but modernized for dancing under fog and pulsating overhead lights.
When DJ Pauly D did arrive, the crowd was even more deafening than the music. He kicked off, appropriately, with Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music,” a song practically created in a lab to get a dance floor jumping.
That was a talent the huge personality demonstrated in several ways. Pauly D is a charming, charismatic guy whose interjections — plenty of “scream it, Pittsburgh”s — always came at the perfect time to get a response. He’s also actually a good DJ, keeping the music varied and never letting a song or sample stick around too long to lose its novelty. Did he get a whole room screaming the first few lyrics to Papa Roach’s “Last Resort”? Yes. But he didn’t keep it going long enugh to remind everyone that “Last Resort” wears out its welcome pretty fast.
He’s also mastered the art of the drop, building momentum and intensity until a song explodes into something new. For example, he took David Guetta and Sia’s “Titanium” to a point of frenzy before adding in an intense, jamming dumbeat that totally transformed the song.
While he featured his share of Black Eyed Peas and Drake, Papa Roach wasn’t the only unusual artist to make an appearance. Creed’s “One Last Breath” and Nickelback’s “How You Remnd Me” drew both whoops and laughs from the crowd. Gotye’s weepy breakup smash hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” got pumped up into an absolute banger.
But the highlight of the set was a perfectly exeuted mashup of 4 Non Blondes ’90s classic “What’s Up?” with Nicki Minaj’s early hit “Beez in the Trap.”
The grinning and grooving DJ kept the spirit of the night alive, decked out in black and gold (and plenty of bling) and yelling out catchphrase “Yeah buddy!” frequently.
And he may have come on late, but that didn’t keep him from playing a full 90 minutes, only winding down at about quarter to midnight.
Clearly in no hurry to run away from his “Jersey Shore” roots, he ended he night with a shouted “I gotta leave. You know why? ‘Cause the cabs are here!”