There was a stretch of the mid-to-late 2010s where electronic dance music was the dominant musical genre in popular culture. The DJs, once behind the booth, were foisted to the front of the stage. The Chainsmokers’ “Closer” led the Billboard charts for 12 weeks. Zedd had made at least two bona-fide smashes with ticking clocks and beat drops that sounded like an ax cracking a tree. An entire ecosystem boomed.
Then it busted, the genre largely retreating off the radio and into Vegas nightclubs and festivals, where EDM’s most ardent practitioners can blissfully roll on molly and exchange bracelets (known, in rave parlance, as kandi). That signature untz-untz-untz may still show up in the mainstream occasionally, but its days as a cultural force feel like a bygone era.
In San Francisco, though, raving is undergoing a multi-year Renaissance. Between the wildly-successful Portola Festival, now in its third year, the emergence of club The Midway as a hotspot for touring DJs and raves, and the countless underground parties hosted by the likes of Vitamin 1000 and Love Supreme, electronic music of all varietals are blooming here in a big way.
The epicenter of the big-tent, big-name EDM revival is located smack-dab in front of the Mayor’s Office: the grassy knolls of the Civic Center Plaza, where 25,000 recently gathered to hear Skrillex and Fred Again’s bro-love fest. (For reference, Civic Center Plaza draws around 6,400 weekly visitors, according to San Francisco Recreation and Park Department spokesperson Tamara Aparton.) The show was masterminded by Another Planet Entertainment, which also owns the neighboring Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, long a destination for Bay Area rave baes.
For the EDM-obsessed, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is arguably the most beloved venue in San Francisco. It’s constantly named as a favorite among the EDM community on TikTok and Reddit. There’s even an Instagram page called Bill Graham Rave Babes, dedicated to the baddies who regularly attend EDM shows at the venue. Lately, the venue has been doubling down on that success, to the delight of EDM fans across the city.
Historically, EDM has been just one part of Bill Graham Civic’s broader musical diet. In 2022 and 2023, for instance, the venue hosted a mix of big-tent indie acts (Arcade Fire, The National), K-pop and rock (Gidle, The Rose), smaller pop artists with devoted stanbases (Melanie Martinez, Kali Uchis, Janelle Monáe), and artists very nearly on the brink of playing Chase Center (Maggie Rogers, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo).
This year, though, more than half of the concert dates held and scheduled at Bill Graham — 21 out of 39 — feature EDM artists. Many of these events are multi-night affairs: San Francisco-raised Illenium, who, according to a recent Rolling Stone article, is Asian America’s DJ of choice, announced a four-night affair in July. Zedd, who was the first act to play the venue when it reopened post-Covid, has four dates lined up there in 2024. Martin Garrix just finished a four-night residency that sold 34,000 tickets in total.
When I ask Mary Conde, a senior vice president at Another Planet, if the spate of EDM shows on Bill Graham’s lineup is intentional, she gives me a bit of a winking response.
“We’re really proud of the legacy of Bill Graham, and that legacy is resonating,” said Conde, who also serves as Bill Graham’s general manager. “The EDM community is very much a family affair. We have the ideals of PLUR, and coming together in your tribe, which is just the modern-day, what started with the Grateful Dead.” (For the uninitiated, PLUR is an acronym for “peace, love, unity, and respect” — the guiding ethos of raving that, of course, comes with its very own elaborate handshake.)
The comparison to Deadhead culture is not off-base. Both EDM DJs and jam bands create cultural and social experiences for their fans, creating a devotion that can survive even the shifting tides of the music industry. And that feeling of community drives ticket sales.
Such successful live acts feel increasingly rare, especially as arena tours nationwide face sagging sales and cancellations. Both The Black Keys and Jennifer Lopez have canceled arena shows this year, and so far the only sold-out concert on Chase Center’s upcoming schedule is Maggie Rogers’ show later this month (though Olivia Rodrigo’s show will likely sell out once tickets are released). The reasons behind the struggles are manifold — inflation making concert tickets and their accompanying fees a tougher pill to swallow; avaricious booking agents putting talent in too-big rooms; lingering hangovers for fans who spent hundreds on Eras and Renaissance tour tickets.
Despite all that, all 25,000 tickets for the Skrillex and Fred Again show sold out in minutes. While Conde wouldn’t confirm whether they’ll book Civic Center for another EDM show anytime soon, it certainly seems like there’s an appetite for it — both from ravers, and from the city itself.
“The Mayor was so supportive, and so happy to be having this big party outside her window,” Conde said of the Skrillex-Fred Again show.
As she should be. Downtown’s comeback is a good thing for the city — and for her re-election prospects. It may also be a boon for her nightlife plans in the near future.
