Sidepiece - EDC Las Vegas Virtual Rave-A-Thon

The early pandemic virtual rave—a bizarre, beautiful time when we danced in our socks and tipped DJs via PayPal. Sidepiece’s EDC Las Vegas Virtual Rave-A-Thon set is a capsule of that era, a burst of unadulterated tech-house fun beamed into our isolation. The vibe is pure living-room party, complete with questionable camera angles and the palpable effort to translate club energy to a webcam.

Forget minimalism; this is big-room, sample-heavy tech house, bouncing at an average 128 BPM and leaning hard on the punchy, party-ready 12A key. The energy profile is all about the mid-range, with catchy vocal hooks and swinging percussion lines designed for maximum shuffle appeal. The tracklist is a festival mainstage cheat code: their own ‘Acrobatic’ is a guaranteed floor-filler, Dantiez Saunderson’s ‘The Harp’ gets a euphoric Beckwith remix, and Jaded’s ‘Dance Much’ is the kind of vocal house that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the feet.

They kick off with a mysterious ID that immediately gets the chat speculating, build to a peak with the relentless drive of ‘Back2back’, and close with the classic, undeniable piano-house joy of ‘I Luv U Baby’. It’s not subtle, but sometimes subtlety is overrated.