Over the past few weeks in San Francisco, while our arts and culture editor Marke B. was at underground parties that I legally cannot describe here, I was out covering the biggest electronic music events in the city: Fisher, Swedish House Mafia, and Skrillex with Four Tet.
Leading into the new year and building on momentum the city has helped build toward such things, these were massive, pop-facing shows. There’s no pretending otherwise, but honestly, that’s what makes them interesting. Beyond the spectacle and any “underground” trappings long since left behind, these three shows offered a pretty clear snapshot of where popular nightlife culture in San Francisco is headed, and who it’s being built for.
Fisher marked the first time Moscone Center hosted something enormous like this; I went on the second night of a two-night takeover, December 20. Operationally, it ran surprisingly smoothly for a first-time venue. Crowd-wise: a lot of phones, a lot of jerseys, a lot of people filming drops they will absolutely never watch again. It felt like a first “rave” moment for a lot of folks since it was an 18+ event.
At the same time, it was aggressively overbranded, which is precisely why “rave” is in quotation marks. Fisher’s face was everywhere, on screens, banners, burned into the back of my eyelids. To me, and probably everyone else in the scene, electronic events and tech-house shows at this scale are entirely disconnected from rave culture, which isn’t shocking; nonetheless, the energy coming from the crowd was palpable and infectious.
Fisher at Moscone Center, December 20. Photos by Andrew Brobst and Mark Mizera
Swedish House Mafia (December 29) and Skrillex with Four Tet (December 30) were both hosted at the massive Pier 80 warehouse, which is a mainstay in Portola Music Festival’s stage setup. These shows, like Fisher, were put on by promotional behemoth Golden Voice and, at Pier 80, Non Plus Ultra. The production felt intentional, with no screens, just lights, but the sound was piercing—in a way that makes you hope everyone who went brought earplugs. That said, the sound quality in the warehouse felt like a huge upgrade from Portola, with more speakers from front to back.
The crowd at Swedish House Mafia, moving toward its third decade of doing this, skewed just old enough to remember exactly where they were the first time they heard these songs. There was definitely heavy anticipation in the room, people waiting to feel something that took them back to the good ole’ days. And when “Don’t You Worry Child” finally dropped, the entire space went through a portal back to 2012, emotionally, spiritually, and with their fashion choices. The show was fun, cathartic, and well-executed nostalgia bait, while also confirming that this version of big-room house lives mostly in the past.
Skrillex and Four Tet at Pier 80, December 30. Photos by Xochitl Frausto
Skrillex with Four Tet was the clear highlight for me. It was a six-hour set that unfolded in phases. It opened with ambient and minimal house, and that’s where Four Tet shined, deep in his bag and full of tracks I’d never heard before, which is exactly what I’m looking on a night out. From there, it moved into more house and breaks with more driving energy, gradually pulling the room forward. In the last 45 minutes, hit, bone-rattling bass, bro-step, and recent bangers from Skrillex finally came out; The light show followed the same arc, from house lights on, to lights off, to minimal light show, and then into a full laser show. The payoff felt enormous: jaws on the floor, eyes rolled back.
At the Skrillex-Four Tet show, they instituted the no-camera rule we’ve seen increase in popularity–started with Berghain and was present in Fred Again’s USB002 tour, putting stickers over phone cameras, which introduced phone shaming that I’ve come to love. Financially, though, buying tickets required me to convince myself that going was a responsible decision. When presale tickets were released, they went for a whopping $170, which immediately limited who could be in that room.
As spectacular and sometimes silly as these shows can be, they still tell us a lot about where nightlife, music, and style are heading in San Francisco, who gets to be part of that future, and what kinds of experiences people are chasing.
