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They say that
a DJ is a puppet master,

a shaman.

All I know is that this world,

electronic music

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.

The whole night was a journey.

There was no money in this.

It was pure underground.

And really raw and it was special.

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.

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.

The ability to
hold a room, read a crowd,

is a fucking art form.

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.

♪ Together ♪

♪ Together ♪

♪ 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.

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.

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.

He hit the floor

and we went, oh shit, and then
we got thrown out.

And they thought it was funny
to push me in the rubbish.

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.

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.

Ibiza is raw.

You can track Roman
hedonism back to Ibiza.

There's ruins of an old Roman disco there.

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.

I've never seen grown
men so stupid skipping

around clubs and stuff,
I'm telling you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is just like stuff
make you wanna dance.

You lose control.

Yeah, you lose control.

And I don't know, you feel free.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everybody in Holland
back then had a DJ name.

You know DJ Tijs didn't
sound very sexy.

And it's very hard to
pronounce for foreign people.

Apparently.

I wanted to make [it] sound more Italian.

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.

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.

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.

It's like a little boy with a dream.

And it's getting bigger and bigger now.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ♪

[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.

And see you next summer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The party will be stopped.

Stop now.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ♪

♪ 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.

I think it's a beautiful reality

as a filmmaker, that is my passion.

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.

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?

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.

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.

We were on an RV

and we drove from New
York, we went as far west

as Wisconsin and Michigan.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's the drop.

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.

Ladies! Gentlemen!

Make some noise!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So how you
liking Vegas so far?

Oh I like it.

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.

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.

- 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.

$200,000
for a private jet, huh?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There was the crash.

2007 the wheels fell off Las Vegas.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What's been really a game
changer club has been Hakkasan.

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 ♪

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Forbes said
you guys made 25 million

as a group last year.

Is that true?

Did we? Where's the money?

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.

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...

I'm about to get painted.

Alright, only a few more nights

to make some memories here in 2014.

C'mon, Miami!

♪ The rain is falling down ♪

♪ Oh oh, oh ♪

♪ What a life ♪

♪ The rain is falling down ♪

♪ Falling down, falling down ♪

♪ Falling down ♪

Make some
noise for the one and only

Kas-kade!

Make some noise for your
Life in Color performers.

Good times, thank you
very much for having me.

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
to give us a jet.

yeah.

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.

Wow.

Oh and Avicii condoms and
tattoos and sunglasses.

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.

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.

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?

Yeah.

Davincii,
Davincii, Davincii, Davincii.

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

♪ Get turned up to death ♪

[electronic music

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.

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.

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.

eerie topline]

They're saying it's the rain.

What do you mean?

Is it raining?

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.

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?

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.

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?

It's Swedish House
Mafia for life, this time.

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.

♪ Welcome, the night ♪

♪ Welcome, the night ♪

If you're with me, can I
get some energy, Tomorrowland?

♪ Welcome ♪

I am just waiting for
the bubble to burst.

And then I'll be like,
that was fun.

Time to have babies now.

Every year, we come back
to this amazing crowd.

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.

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.

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

Yep.