Two Friends are really just two friends. AMIE LU/FOGHORN
Kate Sagara
Staff Writer
Tom Stræte Lagergren, professionally known as Matoma, is a 28-year-old Norwegian DJ and music producer. His top song, “Old Thing Back,” a remix of “Want That Old Thing Back” by The Notorious B.I.G. which features Ja Rule and Ralph Tresvant, has almost 275 million plays on Spotify, where he also has more than eight million monthly listeners. On top of this incredible list of accomplishments, he has a degree in music technology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and spent two years serving in the Norwegian army.
Matoma performed at the Warfield Feb. 28, along with Win and Woo and Two Friends, and the Foghorn was given the opportunity to attend.
First, the Chicago-based DJ duo Win and Woo, comprised of longtime friends Nick Winholt and Austin Woo, performed. They energized the audience with an impressive amount of passion and enthusiasm, and for someone who probably doesn’t appreciate DJs as much as the rest of the audience, I was thoroughly impressed. They even roamed around the audience afterward, greeting fans and chatting as if they weren’t tired at all from their hour-long set, during which they never stopped dancing or smiling.
Next, another duo of longtime friends, conveniently named Two Friends, performed. Two Friends is a Los Angeles-based DJ duo comprised of Eli Sones and Matthew Halperat. Although I didn’t personally enjoy their sound quite as much as I did Win and Woo’s, their stage design featured incredible animations of maneuvering around a Microsoft computer, Guitar Hero in action, and a Twitter background. My personal favorites were a slideshow of pictures of Sones and Halperat’s friendship throughout the years and a shoutout from their moms.
Finally, the main act, Matoma, came out. When I found out his set was not until 11:45 p.m., the old lady in me was like, hell no. But I managed to stay up — and it was incredible. The energy he created was electric. The audience filled in and people of all different ages (from teens to people who could be their parents) all danced wildly together to his intricate mix of fast and hard-hitting sound.
