With all apologies to the people that were inconvenienced when day one of Head Trip ended early due to potential lightning, the general consensus on the ground during day two was largely the same: “It’s pretty epic that it’s turning out this way, though.”
The situation went down as such: At exactly 9 p.m. on Saturday night, Chris Lake and Fisher (playing as Under Construction) were ripping it on Head Trip’s sole stage when the music was abruptly cut off. “That was probably the best show I’ve ever played,” Lake later tweeted. “Right before the music cut, Fish had said similar. We unfortunately didn’t get any warning and didn’t get any chance to explain to you what was happening (we didn’t know either) and we got rushed off site.”
As they were rushed away, the roughly 90,000 of us on the field were instructed to walk back to our vehicles due to the approaching weather, the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel moving inland as the storm hit the SoCal coast. Within 30 minutes it was raining, and the remainder of night one was soon cancelled completely, meaning that a headlining set by Calvin Harris wouldn’t happen.
As big of a bummer as this all was – Head Trip took place Oct. 10-11 on the Coachella grounds in Indio, Calif., a location that doesn’t feel as enchanted under cloud cover – the dejected ambience made the thrill even bigger the next morning, when Head Trip organizer Goldenvoice announced that Harris had joined the Sunday night lineup.
“In an unthinkable situation, every artist made sacrifices for the greater good of the show, resulting in a truly once in a lifetime day of music,” Goldenvoice’s senior vp of talent Danny Bell tells Billboard. “It perfectly exemplifies what makes this genre of music and the artists that drive the culture forward so special.”
The camaraderie extended to Peggy Gou filling in on day two when The Blessed Madonna became unable to play the show for reasons that have not been announced. The revised Sunday bill would thus feature DJ Harvey, Gou (who’d also played b2b with Four Tet the night prior), Dom Dolla b2b Kettama and then Skrillex followed by Harris followed by Swedish House Mafia. (Even the city of Indio got in on the goodwill, confirming to Billboard that they will not fine Goldenvoice for Swedish House Mafia’s set running 33 minutes over the sound curfew.)
If you were alive and raving in the early and mid-2010s, the weight of this bill is epochal. Skrillex, Harris and Swedish House Mafia are three indisputable architects of the EDM era and the hallowed U.S. dance music boom the music fueled. Alongside a few others (Avicii, David Guetta, Zedd, Martin Garrix), they changed the trajectory of dance music in America, blowing down the doors for the millions of kids who entered the scene in the early and mid-2010s.
Head Trip appears to be the first time all three of these artists played the same festival on the same day on the same stage, back-to-back-to-back. Head Trip was an 18+ show, but the crowd seemed fairly equally balanced between younger attendees and a lot of us who were there for EDM, giving the night a dual energy — nostalgia for some, discovery for others — as many of the essential anthems of the era rolled out one after another.
These are our seven takeaways from the fest.
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The Stage & Sound Were Dazzling
Following the format of Desert Trip and Power Trip, Head Trip had just one stage. Creating a space big and immersive enough to hold the entire 90,000 person crowd, was a tall order that was well-executed, with incredibly pristine sound by L-Acoustics and a stage by renowned French production designer Romain Pissenem and his company High Scream. (The High Scream team has also worked on productions including the closing ceremonies of the French Olympics, UEFA Euro 2020 and shows by a wide range of DJs.) The festival positioned the stage at the far end of the field, not far from where the Outdoor Stage is at Coachella, with multiple smaller screens projecting the same visuals as the mainstage positionedin a circle around the crowd.
During the show, Pissenem told Billboard that his goal is always to create spaces where those with GA tickets have as great an experience as those in VIP, and this sci-fi-inspired stage design accomplished the goal, creating a communal vibe from front to back. People could also be seen dancing (like, really dancing hard) on the concrete steps and walls of the area that functions as VIP viewing during Coachella, bringing a thoroughly ravey atmosphere to the Empire Polo Club.
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Calvin Harris Is Arguably the Greatest Songwriter in Modern Dance Music
Harriscame to play during his rescheduled set, opening with 2012’s “Sweet Nothing” and thenproceeding topull dancefloor weapons from his own insane arsenal of hits, along with selections fromother artists including Eric Prydz, Fred again.., The Chemical Brothers and Robert Miles.
It’s incredible, really, that even songs by the Scottish producer that don’t immediately come to mind when thinking of his catalog are still colossal smashes. For example, “Blame,” his 2014 song with singer John Newman, isn’t the most obvious Harris banger, and yet the song has more than 1.4 billion streams on Spotify alone and whipped up a massive singalong when he played it on Sunday. So you can imagine what happened when Harris played one of his biggest songs “We Found Love.” “Do you know this one?” he asked the crowd. The frenzied reaction said yes.
It’s expected for a DJ/producer to play out their own hits, but few other artists in dance music — at Head Trip or otherwise — can command such a lofty setlist of original songs. All in, the show was a reminder of his unparalleled contributions to the genre, and he didn’t even play “One Kiss,” “Spectrum (Say My Name),” “Summer,” “Acceptable in the 80s,” “Girls” or “Feels.”
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It Wasn’t Just a Nostalgia Fest
Head Trip showcased pioneers while also putting forth some of the dance scene’sbiggestartists of the moment.Dom Dolla and Kettama’s b2b gave one of the raviest moments of the weekend, with the light show during their frantic edit of Wildchild’s 1995 club hit “Renegade Master” seeming to utilize every single laser built into the stage. This light show extended so far it could be seen hitting the sides of the nearby Santa Rosa Mountains.
Meanwhile, Peggy Gou paired up with Four Tet for a Saturday night b2b and then drew a huge cheer when she appeared onstage for her solo Sunday set. Both performances included her own 2023 hit “It Goes Like (Na Na Na)” which both times spurred a crowd-wide singalong (but landed a bit harder on Sunday when the sun was out and the general vibe was more in line with the song’s own brightness.) Chris Lake and Fisher (who as previously mentionedboth felt they were playing the best set of their careers before the performance was ended due to weather) served up their own string of hits including Fisher’s tech-house essential “Losing It” and Lake’s “La Noche” with Skrillex and Anita B Queen.
A special shoutout also goes to the legendary DJ Harvey, who opened the show on Sunday by playing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” made us all feel dreamy and profound when he played deadmau5 and Kaskade’s “I Remember” and drank Jameson from the bottle.Props also go to whoever selected the music that played between sets, with Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat,” Chic’s “I Want Your Love” and other all-timers making people on the field dance even when no one was onstage.
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We Still Really Miss Avicii
If Avicii was still alive, there’s reason to believe he’d have been on the bill for Head Trip. It’s been eight years since the Swedish producer’s death by suicide, but he still had a significant presence at Head Trip. Near the end of his set, Skrillex played his dubstep edit of “Levels,” a remix that Skril himself has been dropping for 15 years. Harris honored canonical place in dance music history of Avicii and “Levels” by closing his set with the song. (Which, presuming he was going to play the same set the night before, would have made “Levels” the closing track of the festival’s first night.)If you read the tea leaves, these moves position that song as one of the greatest, and maybe the greatest, tracks of the era Head Trip celebrated. In any case, and as always, the crowd went nuts for it. There were a few tears too, thinking how much better it’d have been for Avicii to have been there to just play it himself.
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These Songs Are New Classics
15 years ago,it was widely considered fashionable to hate EDM, or at least to turn one’s nose up to it. Despite its unprecedented statistical success – Skrillex had already bagged three Grammys by 2012 and Harris alone has 20Hot 100 hits, including one No. 1, by 2018 – the music was consideredby some to be saccharine, populist and too much of a gateway for new fans who didn’t really “understand the scene.”
Certainly, a book could probably be written about the complicated social politics of the era as scene veterans, hipsters and neon-clad kids who might not have understood the genre’s historical context and probably didn’t give a s–t either way,collided on dancefloors.In any case, these songsare now widely acknowledged as genuine classics. Of course, Head Trip hosted a self-selecting crowd, but from the furthest point back on the field to the thick of the uber VIP guest viewing section (where crowds canoften be listless) people were headbanging when Skrillex dropped “Bangarang,” belting at the top of their lungs whenHarris dropped “We Found Love” and, when Swedish House Mafia opened with “Miami 2 Ibiza,” actually sprinting towards the stage.
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Sunflower Sound System Was Extremely Cool
Head Trip 2026 had one magnificent stage, but there was also one fairly inconspicuous tent, a spacedubbed Sunflower Sound System that was curated by British maestro Floating Points. Over the weekend, the space hosted sets by artists including Theo Parrish, Large Professor, Avalon Emerson, Ben UFO, and Floating Points himself, offering a more intimate club-style alternative to the bangers, lasers and fireworks happening on the outdoor stage.
Besides the rotation of tastemakers on the lineup (the set times of which were never published, bringing an element of surprise), the allure of this tent was the Sunflower Sound System itself. Designed by Floating Points and a team of collaborators, the custom-built sound system ensured pristine sound quality wherever you stood in the room. Inside, people grooved with abandon, with one guy spotted in the same position at the center of the dancefloor for most of the weekend and at least one person dancing barefoot.
Much like Soulwax and James Murphy’s Despacio, the Sunflower Sound System gave dancers a sense of hi-fi listening. Some festival-goers waltzed in during quiet periods; other times, attendees would queue for 45 minutes. Either way, worth the trek to Head Trip’s other musical offering.
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The Scope of Head Trip Eclipsed Even the EDM Era
Dance music has long had a chip on its metaphorical shoulder. It doesn’t stream like other genres and it doesn’t tour like other genres, often existing in clubs, fields, warehouses, racetracks and other venues many other genres rarely touch. The Grammys don’t include the dance/electronic categories in the telecast (except when Beyoncé wins one) and the persistent attitude within the dance music industry is one of the genre as a red-headed stepchild perpetually seeking acceptance. Some argue that dance operates too uniquely to ever really fit within a mainstream framework and that that’s okay, while others aspire for the genre to be recognizedand respected on the same level as pop, hip-hop, country and Latin, all genres that themselves borrow from dance music.
Whatever your position, Head Trip has to be considered a sort of anointing. The one-time-only event followed Goldenvoice’s 2016 Desert Trip, which featured Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, The Who and Roger Waters. 2023’s Power Trip celebrated classic metal with Judas Priest, AC/DC, Metallica, Tool and Iron Maiden. And so with Head Trip, the message is essentially a belief in dance music: of its selling power (the crowd was estimated at 90,000), of its current relevancy (the recent Luminate mid-year report identified dance as the fastest growing genre of the moment) and its worthiness of sitting alongside classic rock and metal at the big kids table.
This distinction is important. Certainly, many dance music festivals and cross-genre events like Coachella and Lollapalooza do excellent work in putting dance artists on major stages for giant crowds. But with Head Trip, Goldenvoice has signaled that the genre has not only reached historical relevancy but is also now surging in popularity to the extent thatan investment in a festival of this scale made sense.To wit, it’s significant that Apple Musiclivestreamed Head Trip for a global audience, with the festival marking the platform’s first video livestream of this scale.
And so, all in, Head Trip was a massive party that demonstrated, and celebrated, that dance music has arrived – again.
