EDM.com’s Best of 2022: Performances & DJ Sets

EDM.com proudly publishes four installments of annual year-end coverage: Industry Leaders, Performances, Music Producers and Songs. 

To honor their creativity and deeply influential work to challenge the boundaries of performance, we’ve recognized 10 of the year’s best sets from around the electronic music world. 

Alison Wonderland

Alvarado Laundry, Los Angeles

If you asked us to think of a rarer show than a rave with Alison Wonderland in a laundromat, our hands would be Tide.

In celebration of her remarkable third album, Loner, the superstar DJ and singer-songwriter rinsed out a slew of filthy tracks live from a vacant L.A. laundromat. Organized by Brownies & Lemonade, the pie-in-the-sky performance was attended by less than 100 people, who raved away as strobe lights eerily pierced the thick glass of the room’s washing machines.

Fred again..

Boiler Room: London

Fred again.. broke the internet with his blockbuster Boiler Room debut in London back in July. The DJ set came at a pivotal time for the surging Brit, who dropped his scintillating full-length album, Actual Life 3, just weeks later.

Chock full of unreleased IDs—including unreleased collabs with Skrillex and Jamie xx—the riveting performance quickly went viral and poured gasoline on a breakout year for Fred. With 10 million views and counting on YouTube, his captivating performance will go down in history as one of Boiler Room’s biggest.

Charlotte de Witte

Tomorrowland

Charlotte de Witte, one of techno music’s modern-day icons, landed herself in a page in electronic music history book this year.

2022 saw the superstar Belgian DJ become the first woman and techno artist to close out the iconic Mainstage of Tomorrowland, the world’s largest EDM festival. The electrifying set also marked a hometown triumph for de Witte, who was born in the city of Ghent.

Giolì & Assia

#DiesisLive at Fagradalsfjall Volcano, Iceland

Leading up to the release of Fire Hell and Holy Water, Giolì & Assia’s highly anticipated third album, the Class of 2021 stars stunned when they performed live from an active volcano in Iceland.

The Italian couple are no strangers to performing at some of the most scenic spots on Earth, but this set captivated the eye as their red outfits dazzled in stark contrast to the dark, barren volcanic landscape. Add an enthralling exhibition of their instrumental command, and you’ve got an unparalleled audiovisual experience.

Madeon

Lost Lands Music Festival

Attendees of this year’s Lost Lands, one of the world’s most popular dubstep festivals, probably did a double-take when they saw Saturday’s headliner on the Wompy Woods stage: Madeon. But what he did next rattled the very bones of the prehistoric-themed event.

In stark contrast to the bubbly electronica of his stunning “Good Faith Forever” live show, Madeon’s transformative and ferocious Lost Lands set embraced a sinister sound the likes of which his fans couldn’t have even dreamed of. He locked horns with two other superstar acts performing at the same time in Subtronics and Pendulum, but those ravers who took the leap of faith were rewarded with perhaps the festival’s most unique performance and one the rarest DJ sets of his career.

Eric Prydz

Tomorrowland

In the weird and wonderful world of electronic dance music—where sensory overload reigns supreme—there’s nothing quite like Eric Prydz’s “HOLO.”

Prydz brought his fan-favorite show to Tomorrowland, where he sent ravers into a rabbit hole of which they could not disenthrall. The Swedish electronic music icon, who has long been revered as one of the industry’s leading artists at the intersection of production and performance, managed to overshadow every other artist at the world’s largest EDM festival with his subversive DJ set.

Bedouin

Live at Petra, Jordan for Cercle

Al Khazneh (The Great Treasury) in Petra, Jordan is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. So when Bedouin performed there, they effectively made history in 2022.

Bedouin’s spiritual, atmospheric music was a perfect fit for the historic temple, the latest dream destination at the time for the esteemed events brand Cercle. Not to mention, the duo performed an exclusive hybrid live set brimming with unreleased music.

Kx5 (Kaskade and deadmau5)

EDC Las Vegas

When deadmau5 and Kaskade announced the formation of Kx5 earlier this year, the music industry at large knew this duo was going to be a surefire powerhouse. Still, with only one release, “Escape,” to their name, questions remained as to what a performance between these two long-time collaborators would ultimately look and sound like at the time.

Kx5 debuted their live show under the electric sky to an audience teeming with anticipation—and they delivered against sky-high expectations. The stunning performance showed the synergies between the respective discographies of deadmau5 and Kaskade while giving fans something massive to watch out for in 2023, when their debut album is expected to be released.

Virtual Self and G Jones

Second Sky Music Festival

As usual, Porter Robinson was expected to bring out all the stops for his curated NorCal festival, Second Sky. He did just that and more.

Robinson morphed into his Grammy-nominated Virtual Self alias for a vicious B2B set with G Jones, one of the most technically gifted producers in the bass music scene. The blistering DJ set foamed at its mouth with rave energy as the two went toe to toe under the Bay Area sun for arguably 2022’s best collaborative performance.

RL Grime

Halloween XI: Dead Space

Year after year, RL Grime somehow takes his annual October shenanigans to the next level. The bass music superstar’s eerie-sistible Halloween mix series has become a staple of his storied career, and in 2022, he souped up the spookiness to an all-time high.

Sending fans to the murky depths of dead space, Grime showed that even though he’s released 11 chapters of his flagship mix series, his selections and visual direction are as strong as ever. With help from UFC legend Bruce Buffer and fabled Goosebumps novelist R. L. Stine, he leaned heavily into a more experimental sound to deliver a stunning mix that continues to chill the collective spine of the EDM community long after Halloween.

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