An enormous sculpture of Johann Strauss II’s head sat watching over a sold-out concert hall. The eyes, carved in stone, held their gaze on the stage as if the composer himself had been brought back to witness it all.
That was the scene as Camo & Krooked took over Vienna’s historic Konzerthaus for two sold-out nights September 18-19, when they joined Christian Kolonovits and the Wiener Symphoniker for a rare, full-scale reimagining of Strauss, the legendary Austrian composer revered as “The Waltz King.”
Ubiquitously regarded as key innovators of the drum & bass genre, the Vienna-born duo returned to the same venue where they first staged a Red Bull Symphonic in 2020, this time honoring Strauss with a performance that doubled as a surreal nod to the initiative’s collision of timelines.
The roots of Red Bull Symphonic trace back to 2020, when we first caught up with Camo & Krooked after they joined forces with composer Christian Kolonovits and the Max Steiner Orchestra for an ambitious orchestral reimagining of their catalog. The idea had first been pitched six years earlier by their late friend Felix Günther, and after a period of hesitation, the duo committed to reshaping their sound into a full-scale 75-minute symphony.
The timing wasn’t accidental. This year marks Strauss’ 200th birthday, and while Vienna hosted everything from AI-generated tributes to themed circus performances, Camo & Krooked’s tribute stood out.
“From the contrasts between Camo & Krooked and me, something exciting and new is being created, something we will be proud of,” Kolonovits said.
That contrast was palpable even before the first note. EDM.com was onsite for the final event, where guests arrived at a red carpet entrance before making their way upstairs and encountering custom busts of Camo & Krooked, Kolonovits and Strauss himself on display.
Inside the Konzerthaus, the storied venue buzzed with a sense of occasion. Tables offered a variety of Red Bull alongside custom craft cocktails designed for the event, blending the brand’s signature energy with a touch of elegance. As with past Red Bull Symphonic productions like Rick Ross x Orchestra Noir and Metro Boomin x Orchestra, the attention to detail extended well beyond the stage.
Red velvet seats, carved ceilings and gold trim echoed the history the building was designed to preserve. Opened in 1913, the Konzerthaus was shaped by the Viennese traditions Strauss helped define, but on this night it shifted into the world’s most unlikely drum & bass hub, a dreamscape where classical arrangements and electronic music lived under the same roof.
A crowd that spanned generations filled the concert hall to celebrate Strauss while stepping into something entirely new. You had orchestral enthusiasts in tailored jackets standing next to club kids in graphic t-shirts, and no one looked out of place.
The concert began with a haunting vocal that welcomed the audience into the world they were about to step into, a vocal cue that shifted the hall from chatter to focus. As the lights shifted, Camo & Krooked and Kolonovits walked calmly to their positions with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra easing in behind them.
The show opened with a fusion of Strauss’ “The Bat” and Camo & Krooked’s “Overture,” carrying a subtle trace of drum & bass tucked under sweeping strings and ambient brass. Each new element folded in seamlessly and what started lightly soon built into something stronger, marrying classical with electronic worlds.
A few pieces into the show, a reworked “Persian March” stood out as one of the show’s early highlights.
“That was the first piece we got right,” Markus “Krooked” Wagner told EDM.com in an interview backstage. “The 2/4 time let us experiment in 4/4 without wrecking anything. We wrote the drop in just a few hours, and it felt natural. That was our way into the project.”
Reinhard “Camo” Rietsch added: “And it was misleading. That one came together easily since it was in minor. The rest, not so much. A lot of Strauss’ pieces are complex, most in major, so it was very complicated on most tunes. But we kept going. That track gave us momentum.”
Despite the complexity, Camo & Krooked’s production held its own against the orchestra. Every kick and snare was rebuilt for the hall, with the performance created in a way that percussion and bass tones sat cleanly beneath the strings without clouding them. On tracks like “Numbers” and “Walking the Vienna Woods,” the electronic layers moved in lockstep with the orchestral phrasing, giving the digital elements the same harmonic weight.
From there, the set kept expanding. Mira Lu Kovacs, the first featured soloist of the night, stepped out for a stunning rework of “No Way Out,” drawing the focus to a single voice within the imposing scale of the orchestra. Her voice stretched across chord changes, and at one point she appeared in the center of the crowd, her voice drifting like vapor from within the audience itself.
Other featured vocalists rotated across the performance, each one building new bridges between Camo & Krooked’s drum & bass backbone and Strauss’ ageless compositions. At multiple points, the Carinthian Drum Corps from the Austrian town of St. Veit an der Glan appeared, snapping into tight formations and doubling down on the rhythm section.
Like Kovacs, the drumline also made a surprise appearance from the center of the crowd, placing the audience at the heart of the performance. A pair of dancers, Cat and Leon V, joined the stage as well, threading movement through the music in a way that mirrored the shifts between genres.
The visual design of the show served as an extension of the performance itself, adding dimension to deepen the connection between what was heard and what was seen. A towering screen stretched behind the orchestra, cycling through animated textures, color washes and abstract shapes that shifted with each movement.
Strobes swathed the golden Strauss head in light, shifting its expression with each hue. Every visual choice was tuned to support the emotional weight of the music, amplifying moments of pressure, calm or release without ever pulling focus from the players.
By the time the V.O.I.C.E Choir delivered the crowning finale of “Sientelo,” it seemed the performance couldn’t crescendo any higher. Whether you were in the Konzerthaus or watching online, you were dialed into a rare evening built for any generation of music fans and impactful enough to leave something behind for the next.
For those who missed it in person, the full performance will stream on Red Bull TV starting October 7th with a television premiere following on October 25th on ServusTV, the exact day of Strauss’ 200th birthday.
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