Red Bull Thre3Style at the Mid | Live review + photo gallery

Thursday night, the energy drink to beat all energy drinks, Red Bull, took over West Town hotspot the Mid for the Chicago edition of its national Thre3Style competition. The idea: to get away from the typical theatrics of turntablist DJ competitions and get to the heart of what DJs are really around to do, namely, rock a party. The rules: simple, within 15 minutes contestants must hype the party as best they can and span at least three different styles of music.

The hand-picked list of contestants represented some of the best in Chicago nightlife. From the hip-hop realm there was DJ Trentino, Jay Illa and Big Once. Representing for the more post-modern set there were the genre-spanning talents of Marco Morales, Matt Roan, DJ Jem and Zebo. And last, but certainly not least, from Southside Chicago house crew Ghetto Division, Charlie Glitch also took to the stage to round out the competition.

With Red Bull involved it was nothing short of a spectacle. The heavily branded club featured multiple TV screens airing each contestant's cuts, scratches and turntable trickery, it also aired pre-recorded interviews with each DJ expounding on why they were the best of the bunch. Local MC and socialite Hollywood Holt hosted the night and Jay E, the man behind Nelly's first two records, warmed the crowd up with a video DJ set (VJ set?) the likes of which aren't seen too often.

Even with a close-out set from World DMC Champ—and celebrity judge for the night—DJ Craze, the main event was clearly the DJ battle. And while there were clearly some jittery nerves, all the record slingers held their own and impressed the wall-to-wall crowd. Trentino, who was the evening's runner-up, dropped jaws with a scratch-heavy set that kept the songs flying fast and never got weighed down with showmanship. Zebo, the night's third place winner and a crowd favorite, probably covered the most ground, touching on electro, reggae, dubstep, hip-hop, house and rock—including Hendrix's "Light My Fire" where he literally spit fire out at the crowd. But the big winner of the night was Big Once, one half of downtempo production outfit Meat Number 5 and a proven turntable wizard. In a masterstroke that cinched him the competition he broke from the party-rocking midset to juggle in the names of each of his opponents and why they were, well, whack. The crowd ate it up and so did the judges. Well done sir.