Over the weekend in Toronto, Electronic Nation brought the third annual Digital Dreams Music Festival to Canada’s electronic music’s mecca to help celebrate the country’s 147th birthday. Despite an excess of negative news that has emerged surrounding the city’s electronic music landscape, Digital Dreams’ bevy of talent united and was highlighted by Justice.

With last year’s eclectic lineup including everyone from Tiesto, Richie Hawtin, Datsik, and Porter Robinson among a plethora of other stars, Digital Dreams’ third time gracing The Flats and the Molson Canadian Ampitheatre had a lot to live up to. Fortunately with a daunting amount of electronic music’s biggest stars and some of Toronto’s hometown heroes filling the roster of talent, Digital Dreams’ eclectic inventory of expertise provided a worthy soundtrack to day one.

While artists like NERVO, Carnage, MAKJ, Dyro, and Toronto’s Joe Ghost curated the music at the main stage on day one, Justice closed out the festivities with a genre defiant and refreshing set. Opening with German composer Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” which became famous after being included in the film 2001: A Space Odyessey, the French duo immediately transitioned the orchestral introduction into The Chemical Brothers’ remix of “XTC.”

Destructo’s pounding “Technology” was followed by Justice’s own hit, “Civilization,” and a plethora of other crowd favourites from the French duo. Keeping it in their own country, Brodinki’s “Let The Beat Control Your Body” was the prequel before the pair’s first peculiar choice of the night, The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited.” The BPM was never in one place, the lights were searing, and most importantly, the music was extremely erratic.

While the majority of artists played good, albeit familiar and predictable sets before Justice grabbed control of Digital Dreams, the French duo’s return to Toronto was consistently inconsistent. Highlighted by their complete disregard for the normalities of headlining a festival in the new world of “EDM,” Xaveir de Rosnay and Gaspard Auge brought their own textbook to follow. Closing out with Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” the pair’s last selection proved an everlasting point. In this new chapter of “EDM” headliners standing on the decks, talking over the music, and sometimes lacking originality, there’s something to be said for the disregard of what’s popular and a boldness to express the originality to do something different.

 

 

 

 

Categories: Features