Paul Oakenfold

It could have been the freezing cold weather, or the fact that it was Tuesday night during what is crunch time for most college students in Boston, but to say that DJ Paul Oakenfold filled even half of the Avalon Tuesday night would be overly generous.

Touring in support of his first official album of original music, Bunkka, Oakenfold, who has remixed everyone from the Rolling Stones to Snoop Dogg, began his set shortly after midnight. His album features a crew of guest vocalists including Nelly Furtado, Ice Cube, and Perry Farrell. Performing these tracks live would have been next to impossible so Oakenfold predictably stuck to what he does best: spinning house and trance dance music with so much bass you could literally feel it in your toes. The usual sea of welcoming glowsticks was a virtual pond at best, as the small crowd pumped their fists to the music.

Still, Oakenfold’s legion of fans didn’t seem to mind, eating up everything he played, including a rather uninspired remix of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” featuring a female vocalist. Perched above the dance floor in the DJ booth, in a formula he would repeat throughout his set, Oakenfold built each song’s beat up to climax, then dropped the music as white lights covered the frenzied crowd, raising their arms to sky in almost religious devotion.

A few girls in the crowd took their cue before Oakenfold even started his tired remix of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name,” climbing on their boyfriends’ shoulders, shortly after a remix of the band’s “Staring at the Sun.” By this time, even Oakenfold looked bored up in the booth, frequently chatting away from the turntables mid-song. It’s not to say that the sometimes deified DJ didn’t deliver what his fans would expect, but after watching him go through the motions for such a small crowd, it was hard not to feel like Oakenfold was preaching to the converted.