Tiësto — Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, 2004

Live concert filmed in 2004 at the Pinkpop festival in Landgraaf, the Netherlands, and released by the festival’s official archive. It features Tiësto, born Tijs Verwest, the Dutch DJ and producer then at the peak of the golden age of trance. This set captures a pivotal moment in electronic dance music: the rise of a festival DJ able to turn a rock crowd into an ocean of raised hands with sweeping melodic pads, epic breakdowns and enveloping kicks. Filmed in the conditions of a major European festival, the live capture documents the staging and energy of mid-2000s trance sets, before the EDM wave Tiësto himself would help launch. A valuable archival live concert for understanding how electronic music conquered the big festival stages, and for measuring how far one of the most influential DJs of his generation has come. Released by the official Pinkpop Archive, which also preserves sets by Metallica, Pearl Jam and The Cure, the footage is a rare document of a historic Dutch festival and of a defining chapter in the global rise of dance music.