[film reels]
Downloaded from YTS.LT
[bright music]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.LT
[crowd cheers]
[electronic music: mysterious, downbeat]
[music: "Aural Psynapse" by deadmau5]
- [Narrator] They say that a DJ is a puppet master,
a shaman.
All I know is that this world,
electronic music
[fireworks boom]
can be a magical place.
A change has been coming.
Today, it's all about candy ravers, bottle poppers,
and 30-second explosions.
It's different somehow.
The era of EDM, the rise of superstar DJs
had many of us
waiting... for the drop.
[explosion]
[electronic music]
[crowd cheers]
[electronic music continues]
[crowd cheers]
[music: "Stream" by Stanley Gurvich. Gentle, downbeat]
The whole night was a journey.
- [Speaker] There was no money in this.
It was pure underground.
And really raw and it was special.
[gentle music]
- [Speaker] What it was about was you started the music
at 10 in the evening
and it would go until six in the morning
and the whole night would be a progression of sound.
So you get this movement of sound
it kinda locked you into the dance floor.
It hypnotized you, really.
[electronic music]
- [Speaker] You know, watching those guys mix,
I would just stand in the DJ booth behind them,
completely mesmerized by their every movement
of their hands, their arms.
You could hear in the way they mixed
what they were putting into it physically.
It was the art of DJing.
- [Speaker] The ability to hold a room, read a crowd,
is a fucking art form.
[crowd cheers] [electronic music]
- [Narrator] Electronic music took off
in the underground clubs
of Chicago and Detroit, but it was in the UK where the music
and the DJ would rise to their greatest heights.
[electronic music]
[record needle scratching]
♪ Together ♪
[music: "DC Together" by DSK CHK. Funky, downbeat]
♪ Together ♪
[electronic music]
♪ Together ♪
- We used to kind of go late night clubbing
and then the next day go to school.
So we were going out when we were 14, 15 years old,
going out and experiencing night clubbing before we was 18.
- Now I remember when the DJ would bring the decks in
and they had the red light, the amber light
and the green light and that was the light show.
- I got into this as a kid.
I grew up in Chicago. Going into high school in 1985
and house music was, it was on a few radio stations.
[electronic music]
- There was elements of disco music
that was really creating the club scene
in and around the UK,
but then disco started to become a dirty word
and the house music movement that was happening in the US,
we were able to latch onto something,
which would be exciting.
All the music that was coming from New York, from Chicago,
Detroit, they're all making this underground basement
kind of garage house music and we just lapped it up.
We couldn't get enough of that music.
Now, I think a lot of people from South London,
we'd never really had a lot of money.
- I came from a poor background, a working class background,
but at 15, I thought I could rule the world
and my mom said, "What you gonna go and do?"
And I was like, "Well this is it.
We're in a band, we're going out.
The rest is history."
And she's like, "No you're not.
"You're gonna go and get a career."
So I end up going away for four years studying.
I was a fully qualified chef,
the band we were still doing on the side, it fell away.
I started becoming a bedroom DJ.
I'd come home and I'd have my decks
and I'd be learning.
- He wanted to get into the music business
and I said, if you want to, the only way
to get into it is really to go to New York.
- [DJ] Yo party people, we gotta keep this thing going.
You know, like the way we used to do it
in the Paradise Garage.
[music: "Larry Levan The Final Night
of Paradise Garage 1987." downbeat, retro]
- The king of DJs was playing, Larry Levan.
That was the moment that inspired me
to wanna play music as a DJ.
DJs were all going there and trying to live the experience.
- He was trying to blag to get into Studio 54 one night
Paul was absolutely thwatted, drunk, thwatted.
So me and my cousin, we held him up.
The guy let us through.
We forgot about him
and he just fucking hit the floor. [laughs]
He hit the floor
and we went, oh shit, and then we got thrown out. [laughs]
- And they thought it was funny to push me in the rubbish.
[bag of bottles clanks]
I would've done the same thing.
I would've pushed them.
- He was just a cheeky young guy
pretending to be a big music executive
and the dream kind of came true. [laughs]
- I always looked to my proper job as working
for a record company, trying to sign a band
going in the studio.
I suppose because DJing was never seen as a proper job.
You couldn't make a living.
But then realized that I was born to be a DJ.
[gentle, melancholy trance music]
[music: "Lonely" by Ferry Corsten]
- Ibiza is raw.
You can track Roman hedonism back to Ibiza.
There's ruins of an old Roman disco there.
[melancholy music continues]
- [Narrator] In his early 20s,
Oakenfold was still discovering the power of a DJ.
Then one summer, he went to Ibiza
and experienced Argentine DJ Alfredo Fiorito.
Alfredo took him on a musical journey from around the world.
- The DJs, Pepe, Cesar, Alfredo, were playing
all kinds of music together
and you didn't have that in the UK.
You didn't have that in anywhere else
in the world realistically.
And then you had ecstasy and ecstasy was underground.
It was the drug of the moment.
It played an important part of it along with music
that you'd never heard anywhere else.
Paul came out in the early summer of '87. Took him out
to Amnesia and give him a little friend
and that little friend was ecstasy.
That was it. [laughs]
I've never seen grown men so stupid skipping
around clubs and stuff, I'm telling you. [laughs]
- They were mixing sort of electronic music
with sort of indie music and rock music
all mixing together to make the sort of Balearic sound.
- Every kind of music together was the creation
of the Balearic beat.
I never think I've been creating a sound.
For me, the essential thing was to make
that dance floor work.
- [Narrator] Oakenfold and his friends captured
the eclectic style of the Ibiza DJs
and brought it back to London
they gave it a name, Balearic Beat.
- When we brought in Alfredo,
Alfredo played at the project club in South London.
Then we opened a club called The Future.
Then the main club
that changed everything was Monday night
at Spectrum at Heaven.
- [Speaker] The early Balearic music that everyone
brought back to the UK was based on Alfredo's record box.
- We knew something that no one else knew.
As soon as you come down, you was hooked
'cause it was a revolution.
It was so different, fresh,
and exciting with a different mentality.
You didn't have to dress up.
You could wear sneakers and baggy jeans
and you was there to dance.
- It gave other people an opportunity to be entrepreneurial.
So if you had a bit of money
and a bit of nuance, you could take the scene out
of the clubs and put it in a field.
- You could almost drive around the M25
and just listen out for the sound of techno
or see like the convoys of cars
of people dressed in psychedelic clothes
and you could follow them
that would lead you to a party.
- This was an age where no one had cell phones.
You would go to a phone box, you would dial a number,
it would tell you the address of where it was.
It was in the sort of abandoned
jewelry districts of Birmingham.
You'd throw some tie dye sheets up a disgusting wall.
You would try and make a toilet outta a bucket.
The decks were on a table,
the lights were just strobes, just flashing.
[pulsing, high bpm electronic music]
[music: "Reflections" by Stanley Gurvich]
- Ecstasy makes you very susceptible to the effects of music
and you're having these intense blissful experiences
and you can feel like the DJ is controlling you
in this sort of benign way
and is kind of basically giving you this experience.
And so it bred this kind of feeling
of worship towards the DJs.
- We wanted to have the freedom to right to party
and all this sort of stuff.
It was quite a democracy at the end of the day
by what we caused in a sense of a fuss all over the country.
[electronic music continues]
- It is just like stuff make you wanna dance.
- [Speaker] You lose control.
- Yeah, you lose control.
And I don't know, you feel free.
- [Narrator] By the early 1990s rave culture
was spreading in the UK.
Kids were looking for an escape
from the ailing British economy.
Ragtag groups of DJs
and hippie travelers organized free parties in public spaces
playing a game of cat and mouse with the police.
- The invasion which took place at Castlemorton Common
on Friday the 22nd of May.
On that day, new age travelers, ravers,
and racketeers in drugs
arrived in the strength of two motorized army divisions.
The numbers, speed, and efficiency with which they arrived
Massing probably at one time to as many as 30,000 people
combined to terrorize the local community
to the extent that some residents
had to undergo psychiatric treatment
in the days that followed.
[sheep bleating]
- The normally tranquil common near Malvern had become
a traveler's shanty town.
Tents had gone up.
The 700-acre site normally home to grazing sheep
had become a giant car park
for a motley array of vehicles.
Local people were angered
that the police had apparently been unable
to prevent the invasion.
- We got a phone call from Bedlam Sound System
who were just over here
at Castlemorton Common, saying there's this huge convoy,
36 miles of it coming down from Somerset.
- By Monday morning,
more than 20,000 travelers had turned up.
A large marquee had been erected
and the camp became a giant rave party.
From the air, the sheer scale of the invasion
of the common could be seen, achieving the dubious record
of being Britain's largest ever illegal rave party.
[electronic music]
- Boom, boom, boom.
It never stopped for over a week.
I got in the back room
and kept the radio on all night
so I couldn't hear their bloody music. [laughs]
- The dealers were the thing, they were sitting there
with the prices of things,
prices of different kinds of drugs,
written in lipstick on the car windows.
I saw one child with a thing on his head saying,
"My dad sells the best acid."
- [Speaker] There was a huge public outcry.
They were all terrified
that this was gonna happen on their doorstep.
And so there was a huge amount
of pressure on the government to do something about it.
- If we wanna have a gathering, why not?
- Why can't we party?
- It's not hurting anybody.
I mean we clear up the mess
after the legislate, all the mess was cleared up.
- [Narrator] After the week-long rave ended,
British authorities began a crackdown.
They accused members of Spiral tribe of organizing the rave.
- We tried to make our escape down this direction,
but we were jumped on. These undercover police guys
just jumped out the hedge.
We had no idea of course, that we were being stitched up.
There was plans in the background going on for Spiral Tribe
to be made an example of.
- [Narrator] Parliament pushed through
a criminal justice bill
that included anti rave legislation,
but they couldn't even agree on how to define rave music.
- I agree with him entirely that some of this loud music
is deeply offensive.
We might like to draft a clause
which would catch a rave party
but which would not catch also a Pavarotti concert.
- I hope the noble lord is not accusing Pavarotti
of emitting sounds wholly
or predominantly characterized by the omission
of a succession of repetitive beats.
- I hope also we'll do our best
to avoid sending Pavarotti to prison for three months.
- What happened at Castlemorton
crushed the British rave scene.
- The crushing of that free party movement
kind of encouraged that shift towards the superclub.
[electronic music: urgent, high bpm]
- The electronic scene in a nutshell saved nightclubs.
Nightclubs were dying without a shadow of a doubt.
You know, the DJ was the nerd
who got $20 a night who nobody cared about, you know,
and he could be facing a wall or whatever.
But the DJ in the rave tent was a god.
- The big change
that rave brought was it made DJs into stars
and a crowd of people all staring in the same direction.
- This was something that we really wanted to sell.
The concept of a DJ,
no more important,
no lesser important than Bono or Mick Jagger.
- He's got it.
He's got everyone listening to him.
Once he gets everyone listening to him
he can do whatever he wants.
- Every DJ is one song away from being massive.
That's what it's all about.
One song away from being massive and then that's it.
- [Narrator] Back in the UK, Paul Oakenfold kept pushing
the envelope of what a DJ could be.
- Paul did a remix for U2
of "Even Better Than the Real Thing,"
which was an interesting title
because at one point, the remix
that he did actually was higher up
in the charts than the original.
- They were about to go on a world tour.
They came to me and asked me if I would be the opening act.
"I'd love to, this is an amazing opportunity."
- U2 were prepared to tear up the rule books.
Paul went on that journey with us.
I had to think, adapt,
and prepare to play to a rock and roll crowd.
I'd take a classic Rolling Stones record
or a big current pop record and I would get the vocals
and I would do a house mix to it.
- Paul Oakenfold was the very first superstar DJ
in the world.
Paul was always ahead of everyone, you know,
sometimes too far.
He said in 2002 dance music is gonna be big in America
and no one really believed him.
- I love Oakenfold's story
'cause I heard that he went into his agent's office
and like threw a dart at America and it landed like in Idaho
and he is like, "I wanna play a show there."
He was like, "I wanna bring
this music to Middle America."
He was a visionary this way.
- [Narrator] In 1997, Oakenfold signed with Cream
a club in Liverpool to be their resident DJ every Saturday.
Back then, it was the biggest contract ever for a DJ.
[bright electronic music]
- The biggest thing that Cream did was we put
the DJ center stage.
We built a 20-foot gilt-edged frame.
So we framed the DJ
and that's when the DJ became the god.
[music: "Soliel" by Stanley Gurvich. Dark, moderate pace]
By '94, somebody out there coined the phrase "superstar DJ"
and it was, you know, Paul Oakenfold commits to Cream.
It was in our world that was like signing Ronaldo.
We were signing the best gold scorer
in the business.
We were gonna rival Ministry of Sound,
but we were gonna be a lot more cutting edge.
I was trying to find new records.
I was in the studio making new records
The artists were making records for us.
Record companies were giving us six months exclusives.
We were telling this incredible story through music,
taking people on a journey.
We would just pull it apart, learn how to break records.
You'd never hear a record outside of that room.
It lived in this space for nine months
before I released it as a single.
So people were freaking out.
- Paul knew the rock and roll sensibilities,
he saw it as a performance.
You know, some DJs would never get eye contact
with the crowd but with his limited amount of assets,
you know, he didn't have a guitar,
he didn't have a microphone,
Paul knew how to be a showman
and he knew the buttons to press with the audience.
The first performance of Paul's second year,
I remember it very well because there was huge anticipation.
The lights went down.
And then Paul played this like sort of intro track.
The crowd was getting whipped up
into like you know, a frenzy.
Then out of nowhere he sprung up
and he went straight into his first track.
The explosion of the crowd was just insane.
I just remember getting this rush through my body
and I remember standing there looking at David Levy
and we both just looked at each other
and we're like, "What have we done?"
[electronic music continues]
[crowd cheers]
[music: "Lucky 7" by Yanivi. Funky, upbeat]
- I think the difference between a rock star
and a superstar DJ is not as big anymore as it used to be.
Nowadays, DJs are the superstars of the world.
[upbeat music continues]
- Tiësto was just very fresh faced
and on a very different mission.
This guy to me came from nowhere almost, you know,
and next thing he's the biggest thing
this scene's ever had.
[bicycle riding on street]
- Growing up there, it was pretty intense.
Our street was like borderline against ghetto, burglaries
and wasn't a great area to grow up in.
- We live here in Breda in the Laurierstraat.
He lived always on number 42.
[speaker speaks in foreign language]
[electronic music: trancy, heavy synth topline]
[music: "Theme From Norefjell" by Tiësto]
[speaker speaks in foreign language]
- I was four years old when my parents got divorced.
I grew up with my mom.
I never really knew my dad.
Yeah, I saw him a couple times a year.
He died when I was still pretty young.
Basically my mom raised me
and she was crazy about music too.
So every night she was listening
to music on the couch.
We were listening to Abba and stuff.
When I was like 16.
I was playing for her.
She was dancing in my room.
She never complained me playing loud music, either.
I would open my windows
and play really loud music
so the whole street could enjoy my music. [laughs]
[electronic music continues]
The Spock in Breda was my first regular paying gig
every week, three nights a week.
I was 19, got the equivalent of like $25.
I played from 10 till four. Six hours.
Different times back then.
- Back then we were playing Belgium Beat
and it was very depressing music.
We needed a new sound.
He started playing and I still get goosebumps of it
when I think of that moment, he was playing his music
on the wall actually where it was very shabby.
He started playing and okay, yeah, that's something new,
that's something, that's interesting.
Let's keep the guy.
- It was basically an experimental room,
which helped me a lot actually
because I can just really experiment with sounds
and learn myself how to DJ.
Before the shift I helped at the bar, you know,
making drinks for everybody
and after the shift, I had to clean the restrooms.
Keeps you humble.
I also told him look at the audience
and see what's happening.
And after a while he started, okay, they're bouncing.
[electronic music]
Look, they're really bouncing now, yeah.
They were always wondering where is he taking us,
what's the story tonight?
I can feel it in my body still the adventure
of the evenings when Tijs was playing.
I mean he had three turntables,
one of the first guys I think that played
with three turntables.
We had to build a special set up for it.
[electronic music]
Tijs had a plan in his head.
He wanted to be famous, he wanted
to be the best in his music and that was I think his drive
and that was the drive that I needed behind the turntables.
[music: "Underwater" by Joel Freck. High energy, upbeat]
- In Belgium, you had like the super clubs, Boccaccio
and Confetti's, and they all played like experimental
new beats music and acid house.
For me, it was great to discover those sounds
and this was the first time I heard DJ Sven Vath play.
He was a legend from Germany and he would play six hours
and you would don't recognize any records.
[electronic music continues]
Everybody in Holland back then had a DJ name.
You know DJ Tijs didn't sound very sexy. [laughs]
And it's very hard to pronounce for foreign people.
Apparently.
I wanted to make [it] sound more Italian.
[electronic music]
- [Emcee] : Mr. Tiësto!
- Rotterdam has always been a pretty rough city.
There was this one street in Rotterdam,
the Binnenweg, it was a street with record store
after record store after record store.
- There was this one particular store called Basic Beat.
I was already looking for the more trancy side of music
and not too many stores over there were, you know,
were specialized in it. Until I got to Basic Beat
and there was a certain gentleman named Tijs Verwest
working there.
- I was very lucky to get that job.
The owner of a record store in Breda was also the owner
of the record store in Rotterdam.
I said, "Look, if you ever have a job for me, let me know.
"It's my dream job to work in a record store.
"It's like a kid in a candy store."
- A bunch of DJs that are international right now,
they all hang out in that store on a Friday night
when the latest shipment came in.
We're all looking for the one track
and there were only like two copies in the shipment.
- That's when it really started happening for me
because in that record store in Rotterdam,
Every DJ had his own mailbox.
I had the first pick of all the trance tracks,
so I always had better vinyl than everybody else
on trance music.
Paul Oakenfold actually called me to ask me for tracks,
"How do you get these records?"
I said, "Well, I can send you some stuff."
And I start mailing him records
and he gave me his old acetates.
So it was a win-win situation.
- Tijs was, you know, looked up to him a lot
at that particular time in his career
and Paul was a big advocate of Tiësto.
- I remember him was telling me
how he was doing six one-hour gigs a night in Holland
and he'd drive himself around and I respected that.
[electronic music: dark, pulsing, medium tempo]
- It was like 1999, a very important gig in Amsterdam
during an ID&T event called Innercity.
And that was the time
just before the big breakthrough of trance music.
And he did a remix for a track from Delerium
with Sarah McLaughlin,
"The Silence," which became a trance anthem.
- I was just signing CDs there
and I was only huge in Norway
and in Israel.
So not even Holland.
But one DJ got sick.
I got the opening slot on that night.
It was 30,000 people.
- Tijs was in tears. There was a lot of emotion going on.
There was the big breakthrough
of trance music in the Netherlands.
1999, after Innercity everybody knew Tiësto
and that was the next big thing.
- I feel like I'm getting somewhere
finally after all these years of hard work.
[electronic music: mysterious, pensive]
[music: "Breeze" by Yanivi. Lively, bright]
- I started DJing when I was 11,
around 11 years old. I saw DJs like Tiësto
and Armin van Buuren on TV
and I just started to download programs from the internet
and started to, yeah, work on my own beats and my own songs
and before I knew like one radio station in Holland picked
one of my records up and started playing it
and I was 14 years old when I signed my first record deal.
[people converse in foreign language]
It's like a little boy with a dream.
And it's getting bigger and bigger now.
[lively music]
- I grew up in Germany, I was always into music.
When I was around 20,
I went out and bought some turntables and a mixer.
Becoming proficient at beat matching
took me like two years.
You know and I would literally like listen to a record
for like a minute and count the beats
and then write on the back of the record, the BPM.
'Cause I couldn't figure out which one was faster,
which one was slower.
It was all very confusing, you know?
I DJ'ed at Ministry of Sound,
I had a residency at a club called Leisure Lounge.
It's funny, it took me so long to learn how to DJ.
It's just crazy to think of how long it took me
and how long it took Kai to learn how to DJ.
- You can't just be a DJ, you have to make music.
Like if you don't really make music, you won't be able
to play your songs when you perform.
But also like other DJs won't be playing your song.
- Kai released his first mix album
when he was eight years old.
It came out on Ultra Records.
So they posted this little compilation video
of Kai's mix album on their YouTube channel and a third
or maybe even half of the comments
were complaining about the fact
that he was only a DJ and not a producer.
Kai was eight.
That blew our mind.
Yeah, the pressure is there, no question,
there's really no big name DJ out there
that's not also a producer.
- I've taken music production classes
for like a couple years now.
- Like it drops with this one too.
You see after one, it goes up?
Look.
[upbeat music]
Cool, no?
- I don't really know where it's going, you know.
He's only 11, you know, who knows
what he's into when he's 18 or when he's 20.
But for now, that's what he wants to do.
He wants to be a DJ.
You know, if you ask him
what are you gonna do in your 20s?
I'm gonna be a professional DJ, I wanna be like Tiësto.
- [Narrator] Back in the UK,
by the late '90s, something had changed.
DJs fell off in popularity
as British fans revolted
against the rising cost of admission.
They turned away from music that seemed
to get harder and faster with each passing season.
- The craft of DJing changed.
Instead of taking the crowd on this long journey
and playing more varied music,
[It] became much more like every DJ
trying to blow the other DJ off stage, you know.
- The whole business had become bloated.
DJ fees were out of control.
- [Speaker] Agents would just whack a zero on the end.
There were several committees that got together that tried
to regulate it but it didn't work.
- The values in dance music are more akin
to values in the hippie vibe, right?
Of togetherness, unity, love, peace, respect.
And it just felt like by the end of the '90s,
that the values in dance music had been replaced by money.
- Kids don't wanna go to a business,
they wanna go to a rave.
And if they start feeling like, "Oh this is a brand,
"there's logos everywhere, you know."
It loses its cool, it loses its rawness.
Woodstock didn't have Woodstock logos hanging everywhere.
- By the end of '99
there was so much negativity around that.
Nearly every event that took place
that night suffered.
We lost a lot of money.
- The production companies raped us, the venues raped us,
the DJs raped us and we raped the kids.
And they went, "No, I'm not paying that."
- And it felt like collectively,
thousands and thousands of kids woke up that day
and they weren't in love with dance music
as much as they was a month before.
It was crazy.
- Greed, just greed.
- [Narrator] After the millennium,
electronic music lost its way for a while.
September 11th sent shutters through the world.
In the US, anti-rave laws designed to control drugs
kept the scene mostly underground.
It wasn't like in Europe.
In America, most DJs still weren't dreaming
about how to become rich pop stars.
- There was definitely a whole new era
of artists which gave us a new foundation
in which to build upon.
Swedish House Mafia, deadmau5, David Guetta.
Tiësto was big but then became huge.
- It was that second generation
of kids like the Swedish House Mafia.
And it was those guys that were able to wrap it up
and market it to an audience here in America.
[music: "Summer Nights" by Jhojan Pardo. Bright, upbeat]
- Born and raised in Sweden. Italian father, Swedish mother,
I was the very annoying ADHD kid in class
that never listened.
I lived in my own world. [laughs]
I stopped school when I was 14 years old, actually.
My father said, son you have two choices,
go make music or go back to school.
So I said, "I'm gonna make music."
And then my father started a record label '89
with like techno and trance
and so I kinda fell in love with that pretty early
and look up to all the DJs
and producers that he signed to his label
and wanted to be like them.
I met Steve Angello first time, actually,
I went to disco where I grew up.
We were about eight, 10 years old.
One day we went to my father's office
and we heard the Daft Punk album together, "Homework."
And he was like, "What is this?"
And then we met Axwell at a release party in Sweden.
- Next time, I'm just going to drench my T-shirt in water
to start with and people won't think it's weird
that I sweat this much.
I do this for you people, I do this for you.
- We were like just a couple of guys
making dance music in Sweden.
You know, one day we said we should just go out
and DJ together and drink beer for free.
And that's how it started very organically. [laughs]
We were super drunk in every gig,
so there were people around us
that said, "You guys smashed it."
We were like, "Did we?"
You you have something magical going on.
There's something going on when you play all three together.
We were like, really?
We just going bananas behind the decks.
Then we went into the studio with Laidback Luke
and made "Leave the World Behind" and something happened.
♪ Leave this world behind ♪
[electronic music: bright, upbeat]
[music: "Leave the World Behind"
by Swedish House Mafia and Laidback Luke ft. Deborah Cox]
We were kind of the first house music band, you know.
People were like, "Whoa they are a band now."
There was a forum in Sweden called The Tribe
with some dance music lovers and haters.
And on this forum, we said something like,
"How could they give us cold pizza
and beer and a shit hotel room."
And people start to hate at us like,
"Who the fuck do you think you are?
"The Swedish House Mafia?"
And we said, "That's exactly what we are."
- We wanna thank everybody coming down tonight.
Some of you are ending your summer here and now
with us today and we hope that you will remember us
when you are at your home
in this mother fucking cold winter
we have in Europe. Remember yourself here tonight.
How you looked, what you were drinking,
what you were listening to.
And remember that the Swedish House Mafia loves you.
[crowd cheers]
And see you next summer.
[crowd cheers]
[bright music]
- I mean, the fact that they're the Swedish House Mafia.
I mean, guys from Chicago just hit their knee
and buckled over laughing.
We thought that was the funniest thing we'd ever heard.
I mean this is a uniquely Chicago term,
- But Sweden are famous for Abba and Ikea
and Swedish House Mafia. Avicii.
- And meatballs.
- And meatballs. [laughs]
Yeah, of course.
The Swedish meatballs, yeah.
- For me, music is my life.
Music is my fuel, music is my blood, music is my soul,
music is my air, music is everything for me.
If I don't listen or make music
or trying to make music, I get very depressed.
And you know, I don't see the purpose of living.
- [Narrator] It wasn't only the Swedes
who were busy invading America.
In California, a new generation of DJs
fueled a fresh movement in electronic music.
[music: "Atrio - Id4" by DSK CHK. Dark and wistful]
- I had always heard about these massives on the West Coast
and that these candy kids,
they all wore like Mickey Mouse gloves
and bracelets up to their elbows
and they listened to like hard style and happy hardcore.
It was a very different thing than what we were into.
So when I started to work with Kaskade,
you'd come home from a gig
and be like, "You don't understand.
"These festivals are massive.
"There are so many kids
"and they're young, everybody knows the songs."
- The moment that it changed for me,
that's the first time I played the main stage at EDC.
And I just remember standing in the Coliseum
and watching the people pour in.
I had never seen anything like it.
And that next day, I called up Ultra Records, the label
that I was signed to at the time
and I'm like, "You guys have to see this firsthand.
"You have to come out."
- The energy was that this thing was at like critical mass.
- [Announcer] The party will be stopped.
Stop now.
[excited music]
[people clamoring and shouting]
[bloodied girl sobbing]
- At the end of the weekend when it came out
that a young girl had passed away,
the government, the city, it was too much.
It was to the point where they had to move.
- [Narrator] After the death of Sasha Rodriguez,
Electric Daisy Carnival
moved to Las Vegas. The first year in its new home,
the festival drew 230,000 people over three days.
Death and scandal were not enough to slow the EDM movement.
- We played New York. We loved it.
And then we did a rave on a beach in Miami
called the Masquerade Motel.
It sold out.
And then I remember saying to our agent at the time,
I wanna do Madison Square Garden.
It wasn't because it was an ego play,
it was because, okay,
where would the fans wanna go
that was just once in a fucking lifetime.
- She had a plan.
And you know, we went out on sale, I was so nervous
and it sold out and we didn't believe it.
We were like, "Wow, this is crazy."
[gentle electronic music]
[music: "The Computer" by Niv Ben Eli]
- And Madison Square Garden sold out in nine minutes
with 250,000 people in a holding pattern to buy tickets.
And we crashed Ticketmaster and it was history.
- When we played Madison Square Garden
really stamped dance music.
- It was the best moment ever, Madison Square Garden.
But it came with its baggage afterwards.
It attracted the wrong kind of people.
I regretted it in so many ways
because it attracted these guys that were like,
"What do you mean this sound
"sold out Madison Square Garden?
"What do you mean there were 250,000 people in the queue?
"That must mean there's a hundred of these artists.
"That must mean there's 100 Madison Square Gardens a year."
It was in that much demand
because it was one Madison Square Garden.
So all of a sudden, these like billionaire,
zillionaire, trillionaire, whatevers
were like circling around trying to buy, "oh, quick,
"we must understand, what is this?
"Let's call this EDM."
And you're just like, whoa, really?
- EDM sounds like a disease for me.
It's like I have EDM, you know. [laughs]
- I felt bad afterwards that I used a venue
that the name was so recognizable
to some people that I now wish were not a part of rave.
- I think one of the biggest headlines
for dance music in the last 12 months
has been the enormous amount of consolidation
that's started to go on.
A lot of companies are getting bought
and put together and one of the men
with the biggest purses
and done the most shopping is here
with us today, so Shelly Finkel.
- [Narrator] The rise of EDM had caught
the attention of Wall Street.
After the Swedes rocked Madison Square Garden,
businessman Robert Sillerman set out
to conquer the EDM world with SFX Entertainment.
He hired Sheldon Finkel, a former rock music
and boxing promoter
to help him transform the EDM movement into big business.
- Bob Sillerman was on the cover
of Billboard famously in September
with holding a glitter ball
with like a billion dollars and he decided to go shopping.
It was like supermarket sweep
and every everyone seems to have
got the Shelly Finkel calls.
[electronic music: urgent, dangerous, high bpm]
- What our basic strategy
is to acquire certain major brands
and to acquire promoters in different parts of the world,
which can expand these brands into those markets
that they probably never would've got to do otherwise.
So we have someone we just bought in South America,
probably a dozen different companies in the United States.
We bought the largest promoter in Germany.
- Is there any money left?
- There's plenty of money left.
- I have to sell you something.
- [Narrator] In October of 2013, Bob Sillerman
and the DJ Afrojack rang the opening bell at Nasdaq.
SFX Entertainment,
after buying more than a dozen EDM properties
in just over a year, was now a public company.
[cymbal crash]
[bright, excited music]
["OCT ID" by DSK CHK]
- [Narrator] As Wall Street was investing in a scene
it didn't understand, dance promoters were finding new ways
to reach out to a global audience.
[bright music]
- What I love about dance music is that, you know,
we all come here with the same vibe.
You know, it's all about PLUR,
peace, love, unity, respect.
You know, we enjoy the music, we enjoy
the company of each other
and just, you know, having a good time.
There's no judgment here.
You don't have to worry about you know,
what you are gonna do tomorrow
or your finances, it's just kind of like an escape.
[excited music]
- All of us rushed a fraternity together
last semester. We saw this video online about Ultra
a couple hours away from our school
and we got tickets and decided to come down.
[electronic music continues]
- What happened in 2010
made it so that everyone had to look at their business
and treat it more like a live concert event.
- Television and radio weren't paying attention
to dance music.
So they just found their own way.
- [Narrator] Festivals like Ultra and Tomorrowland
turned the after movie into high art.
Sprawling video teams
filmed dreamy recaps that celebrated the major moments
of each party, which helped sell tickets to the next one.
- The after movies and the pre-movies and the teasers,
it just allowed the culture
and the festival experience
to be like bottled up and packaged.
After movies are fun
'cause you're like, damn I missed out on that.
Like, that was awesome.
But then you just think like,
if last year was awesome, this year's gonna be awesome
so let's go.
- What's nice about it, everybody's looking at it now
and comparing the after movie from Ultra with Tomorrowland
and EDC and which one is better.
- You need to sell the experience.
For any of these festivals, you need,
it's all about, let me put it this way,
goosebumps never lie.
♪ Forever in my mind ♪
♪ Only you ♪
[gentle and bright music]
[music: "Lullabies" by Adventure Club and Yuna.]
♪ The pieces in my life run away with you. ♪
When you get those feelings on the on the arms,
there's nothing like that.
And even if you see it in a video,
a video can bring out those goosebumps
and you say I need to be there.
[music: "Homeward" by Ferry Corsten. Upbeat, trancy]
- I think it's a beautiful reality
as a filmmaker, that is my passion.
[electronic music]
50,000 people at the festival
but a million people that are able
to watch it at their homes
or if this grows even more, you know,
maybe 100 million people in the future.
[music: "Eugina" by Salt Tank. Dreamy, trancy]
[crowd whistling and cheering]
[electronic music continues]
With dance music and the artists within the new digital age
and internet has made it possible for them
to just show themselves.
- I think that why young guys, DJs, producers,
whatever it is, blow up so fast is because the internet.
- I'm doing my social media myself
with one of my friends so that's my focus
and well my financial managers will take care of that part.
I don't want to be involved with that part
and I just take care of my social media.
I think it's really important, you know like,
social media is everything.
People are living on Facebook.
- That's my hobby.
I love making little videos.
It's what, I used to read. Once upon a time
I used to read all the time.
Then Twitter came along and Instagram.
I don't read anymore.
Damn, did you see the London video?
Come on.
I got deep in the new iMovie. It's so sick.
- Did you do it all on the phone?
- [Kaskade] Yeah.
- Impressive, man. I thought you would've
- All on the phone.
- Everything goes so fast.
Today, you're not even number one for four days.
You know, if you're lucky.
- I think today, DJing
has really become a popularity contest.
It's all about how many Facebook followers do you have
or how many Twitter followers do you have
and that's almost like how your worthiness is defined.
It's really not so much about what your skillset is
and how much time you've put in, and to a degree
it's ruined the scene.
I make a new single and two weeks after
they ask me, "Where's your new single?"
The new generation just wanna be first on everything.
They don't care about the quality of your song,
they just wanna have your song on the phone.
They want run back to school and say,
"Look, I have the Avicii song and you don't."
The new generation is pretty damaged
by the internet, I guess.
[electronic music]
- Okay. Hello, everyone.
Welcome to the Electric Canteen.
My name is DJ Kai Song
and I've been DJing for seven years right now.
I was just on my first tour called Camplified
and we went from like camp to camp to camp.
17 dates>
The tour, I definitely, it was totally worth it.
It definitely boosted my fan base on Instagram.
[music: "Run" by Tristan Barton. uplifting, upbeat]
[uplifting music continues]
- We were on an RV
and we drove from New York, we went as far west
as Wisconsin and Michigan.
- [Kai] I was like signing people's arms and foreheads
and business cards and posters.
- They heard about him
and they were like, "Oh really, he's a DJ
"and he's this young and is that really possible?"
- I might have a tour better than that
but I always will remember that as my first tour.
[kids chanting "DJ Kai Song"]
[electronic music]
[music: "Délirio" By Bonzai Classics. Dark, pensive]
- We've definitely felt the push
from America, haven't we Liv?
- The love from America, the energy there.
Our fans there are crazy.
They're so involved in the whole EDM movement
from what they wear to the candy they make
just the peace and love vibe.
I just, I love it.
- Just the togetherness of everyone,
Everyone like vibing in a crowd together.
It's what I live for, man.
[electronic music]
- People look back at Woodstock
and say it was a crazy event
where they wish they could be there
and I think people will look back at this era
and say that they wish they could have seen this.
[electronic music]
- There isn't really anything
counter-cultural about these events.
They're fun and full of color and escape and celebration,
but there's not really a sense
that youth is standing up against the establishment
or represents change.
[electronic music]
It's much more like the idea of leaving reality for a while.
It's escape from a world where things are not looking
that great for young people,
you know, a lot of them are leaving college with debts
and there aren't jobs waiting for them
that would ever give them a chance to pay off those debts.
- I show my friends EDM
and they're like, "I can't listen to this
"unless I'm high, drunk or something like that."
But these are also friends that aren't like chill like me.
Like every group has that one
Like weird different kid, that's me.
I got my gloves and everything.
- [Narrator] One reason why the festivals grew so popular,
they gave the crowd what they craved: release
Every 30 seconds
the music would surge like a rush of dopamine,
sending bodies leaping into the air.
The drop, as it was known, came to define the EDM era.
- Dance music is really simple.
It's a four by four kick drum that actually make a track.
So for me the drop is actually the bar,
the transition between the break
and when the kick drum is kicking back in.
[electronic music drop example]
That's the drop.
[electronic music]
- Certainly, at this point in time,
it's become about something else, for sure.
I mean I'd be an idiot to argue
that it's just about the music.
It's not. It's about carnival rides and food and concessions
and everything that's happening
around this. Going together with your friends.
It's kinda a rite of passage for a lot of young kids.
Went to my first big party
- Ultra tickets are about $500 each that we come out to do.
So I mean we're all putting money into the DJs
- In a sense, they have something that is a much bigger draw
than the drawing power of the specific DJs.
They have the biggest DJs
but they have created something
that is kinda like a unique atmosphere
and they have these dedicated fans
that come dressed in fairy wings
and crazy outfits and costumes.
There is this sense
where it's the brand name Electric Daisy Carnival
and the crowd itself that is the star.
[crowd cheers]
- [ATB, DJ] Ladies! Gentlemen!
Make some noise!
[music: "9pm Till I Come Home" by ATB. Excited, celebratory]
- [Narrator] The success of Electric Daisy Carnival
and Ultra Music Festival fueled the movement
and bred an explosion of EDM festivals.
The modern version of rave spread around the globe
and became a multi-billion dollar business.
- There's a festival in like every city now.
It's a little excessive.
The festivals are absolutely,
they're taking it a little bit too far.
There's only so many kids to go around.
I don't know if any of them are pushing us further.
- It seems as though we're heading down this road
to where things were going in the late '90s
where it's like cannibalizing itself a little bit.
Where less people are traveling to some
of these really big events
because oh man, I don't need to go to Nevada
to see some big show.
They're doing it here in New York.
You know, the people that are trying to make the most
and get the dollars out of this thing
and squeeze it for everything
that it's worth will not know
when to say stop. What's too many?
[music: "Eternity" by Ferry Corsten. Dreamy, trancy]
- [Narrator] The rise of the DJ faced another threat,
one that was all too familiar.
MDMA, known as Molly in its purest form, became the drug
of choice once again for ravers in the EDM era
and kids were dying of overdoses.
- Molly had sort of became like this casual thing
and it was all about like PLUR, you know, peace,
love, unity, respect.
So it was kind of seen as like this mind opening, you know,
not addictive drug.
- All these people are dying 'cause they're eating
whole handfuls and so they don't know what they're doing.
- It's horrible that people
will OD. Kids don't know the consequences.
I saw a girl take six mollies at once.
It's mind boggling but I don't think you can say it
just because it's dance music that makes people die.
- [Interviewer] Does Molly make the experience better?
- No...
- Of course, fuck yeah it does.
Molly's dope. But you gotta know what you're doing.
A lot of people will push it into their bodies,
and have no idea what they're doing.
That's an individual responsibility.
- You can't be like that well versed in the culture
and not realize that like Molly's that prevalent.
They sell those binky light-up things
that I guess you're supposed to suck on like
while you're raving so your teeth don't clench.
The festival knows like how lucrative that is.
They're not gonna stop just because people are dying.
It's just they're making way too much money to think
that it's even an option to stop having these festivals.
Way too much money.
[music: "Thoughts in Motion" by Tristan Barton. Gentle, sad]
[crowd cheers]
[cars gunning engines]
[vehicles whooshing by]
[birds chirping]
- It was Rock Hudson's house I think in the '40s.
It's a very traditional early bungalow.
But yeah, Marlon Brando also came here
for barbecues, which is quite frightening. [laughs]
And now I have as many friends here as I have at home.
Everyone's here but I still love London
so I haven't moved here full time.
[electronic music: mysterious, mournful]
I think some DJs very much like young reality TV stars
have had it too fast too soon.
I do worry for them
because I think that struggle was so joyous
and I can sit here with you
or I can sit by my campfire outside
and we can have talks for hours about years
of working towards this.
And those memories are so precious.
I don't know that those guys are then equipped
to handle fame at the top but that's not their fault.
They're getting this opportunity now.
The demand is high.
We need immediate superstars.
No one wants a tragedy in this scene.
- [Speaker] So how you liking Vegas so far?
- Oh I like it. [laughs]
- I know
two people who have really suffered
in the last year with alcohol and drug addiction.
One's young and one's not so young.
And it is tragic.
[music: "Thoughts in Motion" by Tristan Barton. Somber]
- EDM, I'm just so happy to be kind a part of it
and you know,
we're like right in the middle of it at this time.
'Cause I do think it's the most interesting time
for electronic music right now
'cause it's never been this big before.
[rumbling of sports cars approaching]
[music: "Melodic House" by Descent. Bouncy, upbeat]
[indistinct chatter while walking]
- Hey. - What's up, Ian?
- Hey.
- Did Costa Rica get sorted or no?
- The whole Diplo thing?
- We're working on it.
They basically have me
being their private jet coordinator.
- You should ride in the jet, then.
- [Speaker] $200,000 for a private jet, huh?
[upbeat music]
- It's a young company.
You know, it's actually probably the
youngest company in SFX.
I would say everybody's in the mid to late 20s
and early 30s.
I think it's really cool.
And we're doing it just as big as a, you know,
25-year-old company that's been throwing parties.
We're so connected with this millennial crowd
that's growing throughout the world.
I mean we're part of that.
- Then we all met working at restaurants
then we used to watch "Entourage."
So we're like one day we just want to live
that lifestyle.
- We were all in college so we didn't have money.
[upbeat music]
We grew so fast. A year and a half
of just touring in Florida,
next thing you know we did a national tour of like 20 cities
and then the following tour was 60 cities.
You know, literally 60 shows in a matter of three months.
- I just knew it was gonna be a lot of hard work
and a lot of restless hours, a lot of Adderall.
- [Speaker] Do you think the fees are getting...?
- Ridiculous
- Because I feel like in Central America
what Diplo's asking for is somewhat reasonable.
- I don't think it's reasonable.
I mean we had the offer in for 45 days
and then he comes back
the day that he's supposed to confirm,
"Oh, I need a private jet."
- Yeah.
- That changes everything.
- I started doing events about six years ago
at the beginning of the EDM scene in the US
and I was paying some of these now-superstar DJs
$5,000 to come play.
Now these guys are getting $500,000 to play.
Today, I got a phone call for a DJ
who's gonna be touring South America
around the same time that we are
and he wants $1 million a night.
- It's kinda like a battle that's been going on
for the past few years,
but now it's been getting kind of out of control
where it's time to draw the line.
- [Narrator] But drawing the line wasn't always so easy
because as EDM DJs became more popular,
they made millionaires
out of nightclub owners like David Grutman.
[music: "Beach House" By Marcos Bolanos. Bouncy, upbeat]
- How I wound up in the club business
was after I graduated college, I said I'd go bartend
for a year in South Beach.
I'm from Naples, Florida.
I was gonna go home and do title insurance,
couldn't get hired on the beach anywhere
because I'm a chubby Jewish guy.
So the only place I could get a job was at the Aventura Mall
at the Biz Bistro, which is a restaurant.
This is a bucket made out of like Legos.
Walk with me.
Alex Turco did my fireplace, which is kind of crazy.
These are Legos in the wall.
[groovy house music]
Am I a competitive guy?
People ask me if I have hobbies and my hobby is to dominate.
That's literally my own hobby.
I don't play tennis, I'm not climbing some mountain.
I'm not collecting stamps.
I'm dominating the club business.
You know, people like to say that DJs just push
the button play and then walk away.
I would've thought that from David Guetta out of all people.
But you know, he train wrecked a couple weeks ago with me
and I was like, "What? What just happened?"
He's like, "It happens every two years
"and see, I do really play David."
And so I get surprised here and there, you know?
It's great.
And you can see how these DJs
before their show want to like go do new edits and cuts
and stuff like that and literally I laugh at them
and say, nobody cares about the music.
Just stop it already.
Just get up there and play your fucking hits.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
We really track these guys around, these table customers.
It's a constant thing, especially in the club business
because that one guy can change
the whole outcome of a night or not.
It just depends.
You have certain guys that are, you know,
the arms dealer from, you know,
arms dealing is not illegal in every country, so.
I've seen a 350 table, which is pretty,
It's a crazy table.
- [Interviewer] 300?
- $350,000.
I mean, there's one guy that spent 3 million
with us in two months
and he was just buying the $150,000, you know, Ace of Spade.
He sadly, is gone.
Meaning his parents saw,
cut off his trust fund and that's what happens.
So a big whale like that, what happens
either they get a girlfriend,
they run outta money or they go to jail.
It's one of the three.
Right now, I feel my only competition
is not other clubs in Miami, but it's Vegas.
Is that big whale,
is that big bottle spender gonna go spend
the weekend in Vegas?
Or is he gonna go spend it with me in Miami?
Miami, Miami.
[no audio]
[music: "Rafaelson Groove" by Descent. Dark and throbbing]
- There was the crash.
2007 the wheels fell off Las Vegas.
[electronic music]
Now that was really what changed everything here
because without that, there's no way would the industry
that we have today exist.
Because what Vegas had to do is change how it operated,
changed how it attracted people.
Because people didn't want
to necessarily just throw money at gaming.
Whatever residual cash they had,
they wanted to spend on their own enjoyment.
And nightclubs for some reason seemed to be something
that they were willing to spend money on.
- Las Vegas can be kind of stiff,
they're not necessarily known
for embracing electronic music.
At that time, it was all hip hop.
I mean you were going to see Celine
or you were gonna go listen to like mashup hip hop.
- Electronic music for a while,
its home was essentially Ibiza and London, Berlin.
Europeans never took this market very seriously.
- [Narrator] Paul Oakenfold saw the potential in Las Vegas
for a DJ invasion.
In 2008, he brought Planet Perfecto to Rain Nightclub.
- And I stopped with the DJing
stopped writing on for my album
and realized I'd lost my balance
and had to get back to finding the balance.
And finding my balance was my residency in Las Vegas.
[electronic music]
[crowd cheers]
- Every Saturday, I would go to one place,
play for three hours.
There was 5,000 people.
We had 50 performers.
Every hour, the music style would change,
start off very commercial
and it would go into more melodic,
then it would end on trance.
We would take you to this planet that didn't exist.
And I would make special tracks for scenes.
There was 12 screens behind me.
There was fire, there was artificial snow,
people trapezing and it was electric grinders.
Yeah, it was good.
[music: "Atrio - id4" by DSK CHK. Dark and uptempo]
- Oakenfold's residency at Rain, the first
of its kind in Las Vegas, lasted for three years.
It opened the door for other clubs to ride the EDM wave.
[electronic music]
[jet plane whooshing by]
- My dream was always to go to Las Vegas, you know,
to be there as a resident.
And I've been in Ibiza for over 10 years
and I think in Ibiza I've done everything.
I've seen everything.
All of a sudden, Ibiza
couldn't buy the talent they wanted to
because nightclubs in Las Vegas wanted the same talent.
It went from London and Ibiza to whoop,
I'm sorry you guys are no longer important
and don't really matter much in this music.
It's now LA and Las Vegas.
[music: "City Lights" by Kai Song. Bouncy, upbeat]
[crowd cheers]
[music continues]
[champagne spraying]
[pool Splashing]
[music continues]
- What's been really a game changer club has been Hakkasan.
- [Narrator] In 2013, the MGM Grand paid millions of dollars
to hire Tiësto, Calvin Harris
and Hardwell for its summer parties.
- Neil came up to me, we started this, building
a whole new club, the biggest club in the world, fresh, new.
"I want you to be part of it.
"How do you want the DJ booth?
"How do you want the layout?
"and what can we do to make it your home?"
I don't wanna be in the spotlight all the time
because the challenge
is that it's so bright in the club already.
Sometimes, you have to make it more darker.
♪ Like this, like that, yeah ♪
[music: "Maximal Crazy" by Tiësto. Intense, high bpm]
- Our venue cost over $100 million to build.
- The money that's being put into these new clubs
and these new nights and these new concepts,
is astronomical.
And these guys don't care about electronic music.
- A lot of people have talked about Hakkasan
and you know, we pay this and we paid that
and we overpaid for this and we overpaid for that.
It's like spoiled children in a sweet shop.
Stop. Right?
It's it's it's it's silly.
Until DJs wanna build $100 million venues.
I decide when it opens and when it closes.
[electronic music]
- You know what, I forgot mine.
Like you're in trouble.
- Yeah, you're really in trouble.
You forgot your earplugs?
- Yeah.
- You're fucking in real trouble.
- Well the good thing is I never put monitor to that.
[Unintelligible chatter backstage from girls and DJ Group]
[music [in background]: "Leo" By Norman Doray.]
Why I chose for Hakkasan
is because I really loved the club in the first place
and they offered me my own night with my own visuals
and like everything was like customized
the way I wanted to be.
That's Vegas.
Vegas is all about that.
Like you should give the people experience
and play, instead of playing like a normal DJ gig.
[crowd cheering]
[electronic music]
[crowd cheers]
[music: "Heaven" by DSK CHK. Bright, up tempo]
- What a lot of promoters are saying is Vegas
is pushing everybody's fee up.
- All I know is that Vegas
pays more than anywhere else in the world.
- The grand opening of Hakkasan, they had a customer
that spent $600,000 in just champagne.
One customer.
- We're also one of the few venues that has
what we call our Dynastie package.
A half a million dollar package for some of our top clients.
And very quickly, we went from three
or four nightclubs to several.
[loud boom effect]
[bright up tempo electronic music continues]
[cars riding by]
- Yeah, everything in Vegas is a bubble, I guess.
There's tigers disappearing on a show one day,
there's a girl singing about love
for four hours one day,
there's Tiësto and there's me
and Calvin Harris one day,
and there's P Diddy the other day.
So of course, it's a bubble.
[electronic music] [crowd cheers]
- It's a little bit silly at this point.
It's like dance music by numbers
or night clubbing by numbers.
Okay, here's the flashing batons, here's the dancers,
here's the confetti, here's the cryo.
And it's like American excess on blast.
[music: "After All" By Niv Ben Eli. Pensive, downbeat]
- [Speaker] What happened in the UK
was that when the DJ fee started
to be very publicly known, resentment started to kick in.
- I mean, I can remember the first year that I made $80,000.
I was like, "This is so much money.
"I cannot believe I'm going to be able to do this.
"This is what I'm going to be able to do as a career.
I'm gonna make records and go out and play shows.
"That's what I'm gonna do."
It was like this watershed moment.
[upbeat music]
And it was huge for me.
I mean now, dude, I'm making twice that tonight at the club.
As my fee.
It's like ridiculous, it's like.
- The most I've ever paid a DJ
besides New Year's Eve, obviously, is 200 [thousand].
The year that the DJ fee turning point
happened was 2009, 2010,
when the world was falling apart, that's when DJs
decided to make big fees.
I would love to be paying Tiësto 1,000 bucks.
It's not happening anymore.
That ship has sailed.
- [Interviewer] Forbes said you guys made 25 million
as a group last year.
Is that true?
- Did we? Where's the money? [laughs]
- [laughing] Do we deserve this kind of money? Umm...
If I didn't feel like I deserved
this money, I wouldn't take it.
I mean, there's been a lot of work
and effort that's gotten me to this point.
I've sacrificed, I don't know, countless holidays,
birthdays, anniversaries, you know. [laughs]
Right now, it just seems that the nightclubs
and the festivals, they can't make them big enough.
- Where are we?
- The first stage when you go...[Unintelligible]
[electronic music]
- I'm about to get painted.
[bright electronic music continues]
- Alright, only a few more nights
to make some memories here in 2014.
C'mon, Miami!
[crowd cheers]
[music: "Rain" by Arty. Dreamy, upbeat]
♪ The rain is falling down ♪
♪ Oh oh, oh ♪
♪ What a life ♪
♪ The rain is falling down ♪
♪ Falling down, falling down ♪
♪ Falling down ♪
[electronic music continues]
- [Announcer] Make some noise for the one and only
Kas-kade!
[crowd cheers]
Make some noise for your Life in Color performers.
[crowd cheers]
[unintelligible]
- Good times, thank you very much for having me.
[upbeat music]
- People talk about it today, you know,
with all the paraphernalia that goes on around DJs
and all the money involved and the private jets.
People are like, you know, these guys are like rock stars.
I think DJs are going past that point.
I still see rock stars traveling on buses
and DJs in different level now.
- So we got a jet with Hardwell
'cause we were both coming from the same place.
We had to go to another festival together
and then Robbert ended up playing the gig.
We played straight after him.
And he ended up getting a chopper to the private jet
that was waiting there to then go fly somewhere else.
- It's insane.
So it is insane.
But the transfers and the hotels, you know,
we do get treated a little too well, I think.
- yeah
But you know, we're not gonna say no
when they offer [laughing] to give us a jet.
- yeah.
[music: "Relentless" by K Solis. Bright, upbeat]
- With EDM, it becomes a brand.
It's no longer just the music.
I mean, that's always gonna be the core,
but then from that you extend,
you extend to the merchandise.
We have Avicii ice cream, we have everything Avicii.
You know, it's useful stuff.
It's flip flops, it's water bottles, it's earphones,
things that you would buy normally.
And it's even better now because it's Avicii branded.
That's pretty much it.
- [Interviewer] Wow.
- Oh and Avicii condoms and tattoos and sunglasses. [laughs]
[upbeat music continues]
- Some of the branding that goes on right now.
It's almost becoming a little bit clownesque.
It has nothing to do anymore with the core
of what we're doing, which is great dance music.
It's not something that I find myself doing eventually, no.
I just can't do it.
I come from a different era, I guess
and you know, there's a limit to things for me. Yeah.
[music: "Organized Chaos" by Descent. Upbeat, intense]
- All you do really is just press play
and you know, pull in a show.
If you're a DJ, it's simple.
- You could jump up on stage,
play Tiësto songs and no one would know
it's not Tiësto.
- But I would say it is cooler if they're mixing live.
But I'm not gonna just leave.
I'm gonna say, "Oh, you know what?
"They're not mixing live."
I still enjoy the music.
You know, I still have the sound of the speakers.
You're not gonna get that in your car.
- For sure.
- So that's also something too,
to hear it live is like whoa.
[bright electronic music continues]
- Some people argue that some of this software
that's come out, whether it's Ableton or Traktor
or any of the products that are out there, even Pioneer
that now sync your music for you,
that it's making lazier DJs.
And you do see some professional DJs
that actually are not doing very much up there.
I remember seeing a very popular pop EDM group
that was playing prerecorded synced tracks at a concert.
And everybody that had a visual point of seeing
what their players were doing knew
that nothing was in those players.
- I think they're just pressing play and looking busy.
- Do you? [laughing]
Yeah. [laughing]
- [Crowd] Davincii, Davincii, Davincii, Davincii.
[music: "When Will The Bass Drop" ft. Lil Jon and Sam F]
[chaotic, ominous, upbeat]
- The guys that are trying to confuse people, like, no, no,
I'm this guy who's just like pressing play
and standing up there cheerleading
in front of a prerecorded set.
A lot of those guys try and masquerade
as somebody who's really doing this incredible thing.
And that's when it damages the scene
[electronic music]
♪ Get turned up to death ♪
[electronic music
[head exploding]
- Technology has destroyed the art of DJing.
I mean, let's be honest.
What do you actually need to do now?
Everything's done for you.
Where's the art?
But hey, that's the way it is.
And it's very important to embrace technology.
It really is.
But as an art form in terms of DJing, it's gone.
You can do tricks, you can move things around.
But that feeling of going through records, of playing live
of it being very difficult to keep everything in time
'cause the drums are not locked.
And moving things around
and building the arrangement, the structure
and then going to CDs and looking through your wallet.
All that's gone.
It's just literally you scroll,
you find your track, you can quantize it,
you can just sync it in.
It's locked. You press play.
- I think the opposite. Or you have more opportunities
than ever before.
You can loop real time. If you want
you can play like eight records at the same time
like synced and stuff.
You can just use drum loops everywhere
with all the effects like the delays, the reverbs.
You can actually produce a whole new song
just while you're DJing.
- The technology hasn't killed the art of DJing.
Some of the people in the other generations
they couldn't keep up because they wasn't that good
on the music programs.
The art of DJing, you can never do that
on a festival with 55,000 people.
It's too big. When you're on a lineup
with 15 other mega acts that's been preparing for this show.
It's like the Olympic Games, you know what I mean?
You cannot go to Olympic Games and just wing it.
- I don't see the difference, me personally,
between a DJ giving a show, embracing the audience
and Britney Spears lip syncing at a concert.
I think they're the same in many respects.
I think the customer wants to see that.
- When I saw Dillon Francis at EDC in Orlando,
there was a couple times where he like messed up
and he's like, "Sorry guys.
"Like that's what happens when you're a real DJ."
You know, and I thought it was really cool,
seeing him kind of mess up and be real like that.
I thought it was awesome.
- Yeah, the best always mess up.
- Yeah, last night Tiësto did like
for like, just like a second.
I mean, it does show that he was actually like-
- Human?
- Yeah, yeah.
- That they're actually human.
- Listen, it's easier
to write and produce a song than it's ever been.
The accessibility of what it takes to make a song is,
like, it used to be up here. 808, 909.
You have to used to buy these analog gear.
Now, it's like cool.
You pop open your new laptop
and it comes with some kind of music-making program.
There's some kid in Amsterdam right now that's making a hit.
- [Narrator] As Hardwell prepared
to headline TomorrowWorld,
the stakes were high for SFX Entertainment.
The company's stock price was tanking.
Sillerman's big gamble was on the verge of failure
and a steady rain was about to make it a tough night
for the Dutch superstar, and for EDM.
[rain falling outside]
- I never prepare my complete set.
I just select a couple of tracks.
For example, for today, I have like 2 1/2 hours
but I only play like an hour and 15 minutes.
So it's gonna play a couple of tracks at the festival itself
that's the moment I decide
which tracks I'm actually gonna play live.
[electronic music [on laptop]: eerie topline]
- [Speaker] They're saying it's the rain.
- What do you mean?
Is it raining?
- [Speaker] It's raining a little bit outside,
but they said that the weather's really bad at the venue.
So a lot of the SUVs that they had and vans got stuck inside
or they broke down at the venue.
So they lost vehicles.
- Are they expecting more rain for tonight?
- You're pretty lucky when it comes to that.
- I know.
- You're pretty lucky. - Don't jinx it. [laughs]
[music: "Blackout" by Hardwell. Dark, heavy synth]
- A lot of new kids on the block now,
if you try to book them,
they only can play 60 minutes.
They're not gonna play five minutes longer
'cause they don't have enough music.
I think that's completely against the DJ culture.
- Listen, there's a lot of jokers out there
that are making millions and millions of dollars
that are really just that, they're clowns.
But I can't hate on that
'cause they wanna go and get money.
I'm like, whatever.
That dude's got some hustle,
he's trying to make a living.
Whatever, man.
I only hate on it when they start encroaching
on my territory.
It's like, there's like a lane.
There's a big gutter in between
where my space and your space.
I only get mad when they try
and you know, move into my world.
That's when I'm like, "Okay, cool.
"The charade's off."
- Now this style of music is here to stay,
but if all the big DJs get paid $300,000
to play the same 20 tracks, it's not gonna stay relevant.
We need to make sure that it's not just about the show,
but it also stays about the music.
- To see anything diminished,
it becomes a little bit sad
because I know the importance of that craft
as somebody who's taken a lifetime to master that.
I've been to countless shows where I've seen guys
where my mind's just been blown
and it's like, man, if we miss that
and we're just onto like guys standing
and playing the radio hits, that's kinda boring.
You know? [laughs]
Like, is that really where we're at? Uhh
- Of course, we press play, it's a CD player,
of course, we sit home
and prepare, give the show to our lighting and designers
and the visual guy to keep the show tight.
But we also do a lot of things.
We perform, we speak to the crowd,
we filter it down music when we need to.
And if we don't, they complain.
Ah, he wasn't prepared or the set was not good.
That's the mind fuck for people
because they're like, "But you are a DJ."
No, but now we're not DJs anymore.
We're rock stars.
[music: "Atrio - dark_17" by DSK CHK. Dark, powerful]
[sucking sound and explosion]
[crowd cheers]
[electronic music continues]
- Who knows how long anyone gets a chance to do this, right?
What's the lifespan?
How many years have we been talking about
is this the year that the bubble's gonna burst?
I don't think it's going to,
but you know, people in the industry continue to say,
is this gonna go away?
[music: "Blackout" by Hardwell. Pleading, upbeat]
[electronic music continues]
- It's Swedish House Mafia for life, this time.
[electronic music continues]
[crashing sound effect]
- If the EDM bubble did [mimics popping],
then all of a sudden, this whole house of cards
would fall down around Vegas and Miami
and all the really big things of it.
But, I've been around long enough
to see that happen a few times.
And what happens is we just go back underground.
[electronic music: mysterious, dark, upbeat]
["Welcome The Night" by Sevenn and Silver Panda]
♪ Welcome, the night ♪
[electronic music]
[electronic music continues]
♪ Welcome, the night ♪
[electronic music continues]
- If you're with me, can I get some energy, Tomorrowland?
[crowd cheers]
[electronic music continues]
♪ Welcome ♪
[electronic music continues]
[music: "Underwater" by Joel Freck. Light, downbeat]
- I am just waiting for the bubble to burst.
And then I'll be like, that was fun. [laughs]
Time to have babies now. [laughs]
[electronic music]
- Every year, we come back to this amazing crowd.
[crowd cheers]
- I look into star signs sometimes.
I notice when, I'm a Capricorn and born January 17th,
but a lot of superstars DJs are born
in the Capricorn star sign.
deadmau5, Skrillex, Hardwell, Nicky Romero,
Armin van Buuren, me, Calvin Harris.
We're all born between 20th of December and 20th of January.
There must be something with the star sign
that all those guys are Capricorns.
- I'm 40 years old.
I have no kids.
I'm dying for a kid.
So if you know anyone that would like
to have a kid with me, I would love that.
I have two dogs.
I have a one-eyed cat
and I'm very lonely.
[electronic music]
- You should be sweaty after.
- That's right.
- If you don't, then you're just pressing the button.
- That's right, I'll be very sweaty [crew laughs].
- These are all the places where we was going
to put lorries and carts
and whatever to stop another invasion.
We kept this just in case they had an anniversary. [laughs]
- We're wearing bum bags, which are very much in fashion.
Five pound TK Max, waterproof.
It's versatile, you can spin around.
- And we're gonna show you, two hands to party.
- We're gonna show you the bum bag move.
Ready? One
[hopping up and down]
- Yep.
[hands slapping]
[music: "Run" By Tristan Barton. Emotional, swelling]
[electronic music continues]