Brothers with beats and a streak of grit
Hippie Sabotage are Sacramento brothers Kevin and Jeff Saurer who fuse melodic bass, trap drums, and live guitar. They broke wide when their flip of
Tove Lo found viral lift, but their core has always been moody chords and hip-hop swing. Expect a hands-on show where Kevin leans on crunchy riffs while Jeff chops vocals and rides the faders.
What the night probably sounds like
Likely anchors include
Devil Eyes,
Your Soul,
Stay High (Habits Remix), and
Drifter, stretched with extra builds. The crowd skews mixed: longtime SoundCloud diehards shoulder to shoulder with newer playlist fans, plus local beat kids clocking the drops. Look for layered hoodies, worn caps, and people mouthing the toplines more than jumping nonstop. Quiet trivia: their early gigs were with underground rap bills in NorCal, and they still test unreleased loops between songs. Treat the setlist and staging notes here as informed guesses, since the duo reshuffles parts from show to show.
The Scene Around Hippie Sabotage
SoundCloud roots on sleeves
You will see early SoundCloud-era nods in the crowd, from tie-dye hoodies to black-on-black caps and beat-up skate shoes. People tend to post up in small friend clusters, swapping favorite flips and pointing out when a guitar motif returns later in the set. Singalongs surge on the
Tove Lo hook during
Stay High (Habits Remix), while the push up front gets bouncier when
Devil Eyes drops. A common move is the pre-drop crouch and pop, but mid-tempo stretches invite swaying and hands-up claps more than full-on shuffling.
Small rituals, shared signals
Merch leans soft and simple: washed pastels, sunset gradients, and bold block logos that mirror the duo's mellow-to-heavy arc. Veterans of
Hippie Sabotage shows often note how friendly the pit feels, with quick apologies after bumps and a shared focus on the build rather than the selfie.
How Hippie Sabotage Build the Night
Guitar meets grit
Live,
Hippie Sabotage split duties cleanly: Jeff rides the decks and sampler while Kevin colors everything with overdriven guitar. The vocals are mostly chopped phrases and hooks, pushed out front with roomy reverb so the crowd can sing the contours even without a lead singer. Arrangements tend to start sparse, then stack pads, sub, and hat patterns before a half-time drop resets the pulse. Kevin often tunes his guitar down a whole step and runs an octave pedal, so riffs double as a synth-bass line when the kick hits.
Edits that breathe
They like to reframe older cuts by extending intros and muting the kick to let reverb tails bloom, then punch back in on the one. Tempos slide a few BPM between blends, keeping transitions musical rather than abrupt, and the lighting follows those swells with warm washes and quick strobes. When a track leans too bright, Jeff will low-pass the mix to a murmur and bring the snare back first, which makes the next drop feel heavier.
The Company Hippie Sabotage Keeps
Melodic bass, big feels
Fans of
ODESZA often click with
Hippie Sabotage because both push widescreen melodies and drum-forward drops that feel live.
Louis The Child matches the bright chord stacks and vocal chops, drawing a similar dance-pop crowd that still cares about production details. If you like guitar woven into electronic sets,
San Holo hits the same tender-but-heavy lane. For bigger, more cathartic bass swells,
Illenium sits nearby, and many of his listeners chase the same emotional peaks here.
Where fans cross paths
On the hip-hop-leaning side,
Big Gigantic share the jammy, improviser mindset that keeps transitions playful. Across these acts, the overlap is simple: melody first, rhythm that thumps, and a show that feels hand-touched rather than pre-programmed.
