Photo by Max Zuppinger

Bud Light Presents Sensation Canada
Rogers Centre
Toronto, ON
June 1

Dance music is at its peak in North America, and it may still get even bigger. But there’s only so much room to grow beyond stadium-sized events like the Sensation spectacle that took place at Toronto’s Rogers Centre (still affectionately called SkyDome by most locals) last weekend. Transforming a baseball and football venue into the world’s biggest night club for a one-off show is challenging enough, and the Dutch group behind the traveling rave-style circus spent three years assembling the production and logistics of their first Canadian foray. No matter how informed one may or may not have been on the topic of mass-produced EDM, there was no denying the scope and consummation of this occasion.

The word “epic” has been thrown around ambivalently for far too long now, but few other descriptions would apply to the scenery adorning the dome upon entry. A dozen jellyfish-looking structures hung from the retractable (and closed) roof, and the mid-“field” stage setup that would feature DJs in the round on a rotating platform, was dwarfed by a bulbous urchin-looking collection of orbs and lights hanging above. The artist bill, amazingly announced after most tickets were already purchased, was augmented by booming-voiced interludes illustrating the theme of the affair – The Ocean Of White. The underwater world, apparently, was “a metaphor for our psyches” – and thirty thousand party people (mandatorily dressed in all-white, lest they be denied entry) were ready to take the plunge.

The DJ trajectory was well-devised, building in intensity and keeping things relatively fresh across six different sets. When Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” was pumped through the capable sound system, more than a few in the crowd illuminated at the thought of a surprise appearance. Of course, none was to come. Parallel to the musical advancement, meanwhile, the eye-candy aspect of the show built gradually over time – lasers, fountains, dancers, and all kinds of lights escalating and enhancing the music. A dependable flow of psychotropic treats evidently didn’t hurt either, in case the primary sponsor Bud Light wasn’t quite taking people “there”.

Amsterdam natives Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano – who label themselves as “the world’s most energetic house DJ duo” – struck a commendable balance between accessibility and darkness, the final fifteen minutes of their set ripping through a series of shadowy beats. An interlude combining the only dubstep-ish moment of the affair with Underworld’s “Born Slippy” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had people screaming louder than during any of the DJ performances, but this group of spinners and samplers wasn’t about to let them off that easy. Fedde Le Grand bumped up the BPMs on Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” early on, then dropped C2C’s “Down The Road” – a direct descendant of Avicii’s genre-defining “Levels” in its use of an old blues sample.

Fedde proved his worth as a mixer of well-known samples and dirty remixes, giving both Red Hot Chili Peppers and Coldplay the electronic treatment as he neared a locomotive-like peak. Swedish superstar Eric Prydz followed, creatively subverting his “drops”, which in general had by then become somewhat tedious. Such is the way of the 2013 EDM artist, but Prydz kept shrewd listeners on their toes with many a musical red herring, and a truckload of filthy tech-house cuts in his arsenal. He and show-closer Otto Knows both deployed M83’s “Midnight City” at key points, the only major redundancy to speak of. With anthemic dance tunes keeping everyone satiated until 3am appeared, the music did more than an adequate job making the ambitious event worthwhile. The scale and construction of the glorious undertaking, professionally fulfilled to a T, qualified it as sensational.