“Abandon all hope, ye who enter,” it says on the wall – no, my mistake, that is just the sign for the Johnnie Walker bar at Marvel Stadium. I have a theory that what everyone is drinking at a show can tell you a lot about the mood of a crowd, and based on the stacks of Hard Solo and Walker cans strewn on the streets outside Dom Dolla’s biggest ever show, 60,000 people are in for an intense, sticky night.
And a significant one. That 60,000 people have turned out to see a DJ play in a stadium, the biggest electronic dance music (EDM) concert by a solo artist ever staged in Australia’s history, tells us something about the way music is changing – both in Australia and outside it.
Australia currently ranks as the world’s third-largest streaming market for EDM (behind the US and Germany). Australian EDM is our most popular genre internationally on Spotify. And Dom Dolla – real name: Dominic Matheson – is part of the current charge, along with the likes of Rüfüs Du Sol, Flume, Fisher, Cyril, Alison Wonderland, Confidence Man, Pnau and The Avalanches. Some of these names may seem old, but the heights of their successes are new.
Dom Dolla’s 2024 national tour was the largest-ever staged by an Australian electronic artist: 170,000 tickets sold. He sold out Madison Square Garden – twice – in 2025. After Thursday’s record show in Australia, he will set another record in New Zealand in February when he puts on the biggest-ever electronic music event in the country’s history.
Dom Dolla has not achieved this success by reinventing the wheel. He has hit a sweet spot between the EDM purists, the tech house fans and the mainstream. There are no surprises; the bass drops exactly when you think it will. He remixes Kings of Leon, Billie Eilish and Technotronic. It is reliable, it is fun.
Some of his appeal also has to do with his particularly understated Australian charm. He doesn’t muck about with small talk, other than to share his wonder at his own spectacle. “This is absolutely fucking mental, I love it,” he says, to wild cheers. A bit later: “This is absolutely fucking insane.” More cheers. When I ask around among the crowd why everyone loves him so, the consensus is: he’s a local boy done good.
Does EDM work in stadiums? Yes and no. Putting the roof on Marvel Stadium doesn’t make it cosy. An arena or stadium is never going to capture the cramped intensity of a club. But they do allow for ground-shaking sound and spectacle, and Dom Dolla has fire balls, fireworks and lasers out the wazoo. The crowd’s energy feels febrile, edgier than other stadium shows I’ve been to recently; a lot of women are dragging their drunk friends along with the grim intensity of a prison guard. This is now “the world’s biggest nightclub”, as Dom Dolla puts it – and it is messy.
With an hour to go, the bass suddenly disappears. There has been some kind of technical snafu, which Dom Dolla keeps smoothly playing through. But the mood in the crowd very noticeably shifts. He’s up there all by himself. They smell blood. When the bass comes back 20 minutes later, the scream of 60,000 elated people takes the roof off. All is well again.
I personally love EDM because it can bring on a euphoric meditative state. Alive 2007 by Daft Punk, their live recording from Paris, is my most played album for a reason: the crowd. I love the whoops and roars more than the clinical precision of any of their studio albums. And I think about the lives of everyone at that Paris gig – the bad days at work, the arguments in the car, the mundane frustrations – and how none of that would have mattered to everyone during that show. At Dom Dolla, my mind goes to strange places as we writhe and sweat. I think about how I should have bought shares in Hard Solo. I think about dopamine and how EDM taps into something in our caveman brains. I think about how dancing in a crowd makes us feel connected to complete strangers. And at some point I realise, blissfully, I am no longer thinking at all.
