DJ Snake at Bonfire Festival: A Critical Review of the Modern DJ Show

DJ Snake is hardly a minor name in electronic dance music. Behind the artist name is the French producer William Grigahcine, who over the past decade has helped create some absolutely massive hits. “Turn Down for What” with Lil Jon, “Let Me Love You” with Justin Bieber, “Taki Taki” with Selena Gomez, Ozuna and Cardi B, as well as “Middle” with Bipolar Sunshine are some of them. Add to that Major Lazer’s “Lean On” with MØ, where DJ Snake is also one of the producers, and there’s hardly any doubt about his ability to make music that reaches a gigantic audience.

So it’s not DJ Snake as a producer that I have any major issue with.

It’s the whole thing with DJs on a big festival stage that I don’t quite understand.

Right from the start, it’s a full-scale spectacle at Bonfire Festival. The bass rumbles, the lights flash, and there is constant fire. So much fire that the pyrotechnics after a while almost feel like another member of the ensemble.

In the middle of it all stands DJ Snake behind a huge, two-story rig. The problem for those of us at the very front is just that he’s so high up and far behind his mixer that we can barely see him.

We see the hands.

Two waving hands above the edge.

At a few moments he climbs up even higher and actually becomes visible to the audience at the very front, but most of the time the visual contact with the evening’s main act consists of a pair of arms and hands that appear and disappear.

It hardly works wonders for my already somewhat skeptical attitude toward DJs on big festival stages.

From my position, it’s also difficult to see what DJ Snake is actually doing with the equipment back there. Any button presses here and there likely pass my gaze unnoticed, but what’s mostly visible are the hands in the air. However, the microphone is used all the more frequently.

“Bonfire!”

“One, two, three!”

“Come on!”

“Hands up!”

And up go the hands.

Soon after comes the pyrotechnics.

After a while you begin to understand the dramaturgy. DJ Snake shouts something, the audience responds, the music builds up, hands go up, and then comes a bass drop accompanied by even more fire.

At one point, we’re supposed to shout “hi!” back at him. DJ Snake shouts, the audience responds. Then we do it again. And again. In something that starts to feel like an eternal loop.

And the audience loves it.

This really needs to be emphasized, because looking around, it’s hard to claim that DJ Snake fails at his job. Especially the younger part of the audience is jumping, dancing, and willingly following every instruction from the stage.

Personally, however, I am starting to feel about 137 years old.

Musically, I recognize several songs and melodies that appear during the set, but often in other guises than I’m used to. There are his own productions mixed with other music, remixes, edits, and mashups. For those who love DJ culture, that’s probably a big part of the allure – familiar songs are ripped apart and rebuilt into something new that fits the night’s set.

For me, it rather reinforces the nightclub feeling.

At the same time, I realize how much of a grump I sound like as I write this, but sometimes it feels a bit as if I myself would put together a mix of Slipknot songs, stand behind a big mixer, press play, and then wave my hands while “Duality” blares from the speakers.

The difference, of course, is that no one would reasonably pay to see me do it.

And to be fair to DJ Snake, the comparison is naturally a gross simplification. DJ culture is about much more than pressing play, and no one can take away from him what he’s achieved as a producer. He’s created music that’s been played billions of times and clearly knows exactly how to craft electronic music for huge crowds.

It’s the live format itself I don’t get.

Because when an artist stands on the biggest stage at a festival, I want to feel there’s a reason I need to actually be there and witness it happen. And when the person I’m supposed to be watching spends most of the performance hidden behind a two-story structure, that feeling becomes even harder to find.

Musician? Yes, DJ Snake’s résumé as a producer speaks for itself.

Live artist? There I’m much more doubtful.

Because here, at times, it mostly feels like being at a gigantic nightclub that’s been transplanted to a festival site and given an almost unlimited budget for fire and pyrotechnics.

In the end, I leave.

Not because the performance is a failure. On the contrary, the crowd in front of the stage seems to be having a fantastic time. I leave because I realize that this just isn’t for me.

DJ at a club? Absolutely. Any day of the week.

DJ Snake as a producer? No objections.

But DJ on the big stage at a festival like Bonfire?

Not really.

You can call me a grump. You can call me old-fashioned. I can live with both.

And as yet another bass drop rumbles behind me while I walk away from the stage, I suppose I just have to accept my new life as a grump.