Review | Austin Millz Electrifies Santa Barbara’s SOhO

Blooming from his Harlem roots, dance music phenom Austin Millz cultivates energy and excitement everywhere he tours, especially in Santa Barbara.

Millz started off his show at SOhO on June 15 with his popular remix of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” to get the crowd going — and get going they did. Within the first five minutes, one woman had already thrown her bra onstage and started an “Austin, Austin, Austin” chant.

Crossing genre lines, Millz flexed his mashup muscle by flowing unexpected pairings like The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” into Lil Uzi Vert’s “Miss the Rage,” and Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream” into the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”

Mixes like these inspired two women in the front row to climb onstage and dance alongside Millz, who took the surprise in stride. He thanked them for their shower of compliments as they climbed back down.

Luckily for SOhO attendees, Millz had just released his debut EP only an hour prior to the show’s start, so we also got to enjoy some fresh-out-of-the-studio original songs featuring artists like Duckwrth and Estelle. Though we couldn’t sing along to some of the new music, the hypnotic and bass-filled grooves kept the crowd grooving. A highlight was the satisfyingly repetitive “On + On (with Justine Skye),” which landed Millz a cover feature on Spotify’s Mint playlist just days later.

Millz’s passion for his craft came through as he bounced on the stage, locs swinging to his drum pad beats. Millz ended the 90-minute set on a high note with one of his earliest hits, “Bad Behavior.” Afterward, the crowd still wanted more, and banged the barriers on the ground, chanting “One more song,” to no avail.