The Prodigy, Subtronics and more highlighted the blockbuster weekend at the world’s biggest dance music festival — and we were there, for nearly 30 hours.
The winds were occasionally high; the inhibitions were always low.
Electric Daisy Carnival turned 30 this past weekend, Sunday gusts blowing out any lingering birthday candles with temporary stage closings that night.
But as always, the show went on.
We were there from start to finish, spending close to 30 hours beneath the electric sky once again.
Here are six takeaways from another wild EDC weekend:
The Prodigy (metaphorically) punches EDC in the face
It was fitting that their set began with a tornado siren, a warning, as The Prodigy didn’t perform on the Cosmic Meadow stage so much as detonate it.
One of the rare live bands to play EDC this year, the electronica heavyweights absolutely pummeled the audience Saturday.
In the mid-’90s, The Prodigy broke through as one of electronic dance music’s biggest crossover acts, the first band of their kind to really resonate with the rock crowd thanks to their guitar-charged big beat and in-your-face live gigs.
Thirty years later, bangers like “Poison,” “Breathe” and “Firestarter” — the latter featuring sampled vocals from late singer Keith Flint — still rumbled like an agitated faultline.
“Listen, it don’t get harder than this,” singer/MC Maxim said toward the end of the band’s one-hour performance. “This is the real deal.”
We can vouch for that: The Prodigy topped The Bloody Beetroots’ 2013 throwdown on the same stage as the heaviest EDC band set we’ve seen.
In-the-round excellence
It was the difference between a blown kiss and a big, sweaty, bear hug.
The Cosmic Meadow stage is massive — EDC’s third biggest, the size of a beached aircraft carrier — and so seeing acts there is all about sensory overload, not intimacy.
That changes, though, for “in-the-round” sets, in which acts work a small stage in the back of the lawn, the crowd literally within arm’s length of the performer, like a nightclub with a grass-covered dance floor.
On Saturday, there were a pair of standout in-the-round performances.
First up, VTSS (Martyna Maja) distinguished herself with an equally motoric and melodic, techno-leaning showing, the Polish DJ-producer knocking back shots of high-end tequila as she delivered a set with just as much kick as said hooch.
Two hours later, the white-hot Bunt. (Levi Wijk) fulfilled the high expectations that prefaced his much-anticipated EDC debut with an irrepressibly buoyant set both sonically and thematically, his performance registering as a folk-EDM pep talk at times, a techno tour de force at others.
“Maybe we should all just get along with each other / And put away our problems,” Wijk explained in song during “Moment.” “But whatever it is, you just need to forget about everything and just have a good time / It’s really that simple.”
Well, it was on this night.
Best hidden gem
It was like having a private cabana in a South African township.
The Ubuntu stage, which debuted at EDC last year, comes ringed with a half-dozen two-story shacks made of wood and metal siding, some outfitted with gleaming disco balls.
The stage moved to the south side of the grassy infield this go-round. Tucked away from most of the action, it was a hidden gem.
You could chill inside one of the shanties or get out and move beneath strings of lights to an Afro-beat soundtrack.
Vigro Deep on Sunday was particularly sublime.
Dubstep’s biggest ever EDC slot?
It was a rare request, considering the surroundings.
“It’d be crazy if we opened the up mosh pit at the Kinetic Field right now,” Subtronics (Jesse Kardon) said to the gargantuan crowd before him, a nod to the concussive, full-contact dubstep he trades in.
Now, dubstep isn’t totally uncommon on EDC’s biggest stage, but it’s not exactly featured either — and certainly not at the prime 1:47 a.m. Saturday slot.
But Subtronics has been having that kind of year, and his Kinetic Field set felt like a victory lap — a bruising one.
Opening with “Scream Saver” enhanced by an orchestral intro, his performance was intensely manic, hopscotching feverishly between a flurry of hit remixes and his own anthemically bludgeoning repertoire.
It was a gut punch delivered with a grin.
There’d be more dubstep pugilism on the Kinetic Field on Sunday — albeit much earlier in the night — when Wooli teamed up with Griz for maybe the most bass-heavy B2B set in the stage’s history.
Ladies first
Forget the free ear plugs, complimentary oxygen tanks should have been provided at the Circuit Grounds on Saturday when Peggy Gou and KI/KI (Kiki Wesselo) shared the stage in a breathless performance that hit like a cardio-fitness routine.
On paper, it was an intriguing pairing, Gou’s wide-ranging house contrasted with KI/KI’s head-down, full-throttle techno.
In the flesh, it was a brick-on-the-accelerator blast, a hand-in-glove fit that was our favorite B2B pairing of the fest.
KI/KI returned for another set on Sunday at the Cosmic Garden — the same stage where Gou shined Friday — the two forming the weekend’s best bookends.
EDC’s largest crowd of 2026?
We’re going to go with John Summit at the Kinetic Field on Saturday — doubly impressive since he performed at the same time that Tiesto was maintaining his 16-year EDC streak at the Circuit Grounds.
The requisite Monday morning gridlock on Interstate had nothing on this massive traffic jam of humanity.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.
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