Excision Turns the Forum Into a Battlefield of Bass and Belonging

Excision at The Kia Forum in Inglewood

Mar 25, 2026

Excision’s stage erupts in neon chaos, and the entire Forum locks into the drop.

The Build Before the Drop

There’s always a promise when Excision comes back around. Not subtle, not quiet. It’s loud before the first note even hits. The Kia Forum leaned into that promise hard, advertising this as their biggest production experience yet. And if you’ve ever stood in the blast radius of an Excision set, you already know that’s not marketing fluff. That’s a warning label.

The Forum glows in Excision red, a beacon calling every headbanger inside.

Five openers cycled through before the man himself touched the decks, but the difference was obvious. The setup was intentionally restrained, almost like the venue was holding its breath. Basic lighting. Standard speakers. Functional, but clearly not the full arsenal. Everything felt like it was waiting for Jeff Abel to flip the switch.

The Gamble of the Seats

The Forum is built like a controlled explosion. Open floor chaos below, then layers of seating rising above it. I took the gamble on 100-level seats, and I’ll be honest, there was hesitation.

Seats can feel isolating. You’re boxed into your section. You’re not in the swarm. And usually, that comes with a weird trade-off where you’re paying more to feel less connected.

But this wasn’t a usual crowd.

When the drop hits, the arena erupts—color, smoke, and thousands of bodies moving as one.

Almost immediately, that idea of isolation collapsed. The people around me didn’t stay strangers. They didn’t sit quietly in their own bubbles. They leaned in, talked, laughed, moved. There’s something different about Excision fans. They don’t treat concerts like individual experiences. They treat them like shared missions.

You’re not just attending. You’re participating.

And that shift turned a potentially lonely seat into something communal. Something alive.

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Openers, Missed Moments, and Unexpected Hits

The night didn’t unfold cleanly. It never does.

I missed part of Tisoki’s set thanks to the maze of entrances and the gravitational pull of parking lot pregame conversations. That’s part of the culture too. You show up for the music, but you stay for the people.

Cyclops, though, made sure I locked in.

There was no easing into it. The set opened with a full West Coast nod, Tupac reimagined as this wild, almost absurd animated character. Egg-shaped, blunt in hand, cruising in a lowrider. It shouldn’t have worked. It absolutely did. Pacstep was a vibe for a moment or two

Pacstep hit like a hybrid memory. Familiar sounds twisted through riddim basslines, with pieces of Snoop Dogg woven into the mix. The crowd didn’t question it. They embraced it.

And honestly, Cyclops overdelivered. I came in with zero expectations and left impressed. The sound was complete. Not hollow, not experimental for the sake of it. It had weight, direction, identity.

Smoakland followed with a more laid-back energy. Enjoyable, but not commanding. It felt like a breather rather than a takeover.

Then Riot Ten snapped everything back into focus. Aggressive. Sharp. Exactly what you expect. The kind of set that should trigger chaos. I kept scanning the crowd for mosh pits, for that eruption. It never fully happened.

And then the curveball.

Adventure Club bailed.

No buildup. No explanation in the moment. Just absence.

Mersiv stepped in and didn’t try to replicate what was lost. Instead, he reshaped the energy. Highs and lows. A more hypnotic, entrancing arc.

When the System Wakes Up

There’s a moment before Excision comes on where everything shifts.

The techs were still calibrating. Tracks played in the background. But something changed.

A fire-breathing visual takeover—Excision’s world comes alive as the crowd gets swallowed by the spectacle.

The bass deepened.

Not louder. Deeper.

You could feel it first in your chest, then your legs, then somewhere harder to name. The sound stopped being external and started becoming physical.

The lighting followed. Angles you didn’t notice before suddenly mattered. Corners lit up. Beams cut through space in ways that made the venue feel larger than it actually was.

And then it clicked.

This was the full system waking up.

Controlled Chaos, Perfect Release

The first real drop hit and everything snapped into alignment.

It had been a few years since I saw Excision, but holy cow, everything about me remembered being there before in the midst of the bass, the alarming noises, the gangster rhythm and attitudes mixed with aggression rock headbanging sensations. All of a sudden, I was busting out sweet EDM dance moves while headbanging. Sometimes a whole group of 5 or more of us would face the same spot and headbang and rage into the space.

The visuals carried weight. Massive, destructive characters filled the screen, moving with the music like the sound was animating them in real time.

And underneath it all was release. Real release. Stress, tension, whatever you walked in with, it had somewhere to go.

Lasers, Harambe, and the Unexpected Emotional Punch

The light show pushed into territory I hadn’t seen before.

Lasers didn’t just project outward. They fired back at the screen, simulating impact. One sequence hit especially hard, a barrage of light aimed at a massive Harambe, King Kong-style figure.

It wasn’t just spectacle. It hit emotionally.

The lighting extended into the seating sections too. Fixtures right in front of us. Colors shifting from deep tones to full-spectrum bursts. You weren’t watching the show.

You were inside it.

Strangers, Family, and the Real Headliner

The real headline wasn’t on stage.

It was the people.

Strangers became teammates. We caught each other, shared water, held space. There was an unspoken agreement that we were all getting through the night together.