As the Winter frost finally loosens her grip and ebbs into the succulent scents of Spring – there’s typically only one thing on my, or any of my friend’s minds: what’s the next music festival you’re trying to get to?

My whole life, music has been my backbone – whether it’s dancing, playing flute, in choir or as the sound engineer at the local television station for kicks. As far back as I can remember, from the time I left college in 2008 and moved to Los Angeles – dance music has been a sort of genesis for me, almost chrysalis . It’s introduced me to people that have changed my life, it brought me to the man I’m married to today, it changed my career path, it turned me into a Senior Editor for a world class DJ blog, it gave me an outlet to explore the truth of who I am – and I’m such a better person for it because it gave me back myself.

THAT said, it hurts my heart that with the current Coronavirus crisis – festival season for 2020 is effectively cancelled, and rightfully so. It began with Ultra Abu Dhabi being cancelled back in March, and then it started spiraling. Ultra Miami and Miami Music Week both ‘rescheduled’ for next year, which is a fancy way of saying cancelled. Within days – Tomorrowland Winter, Lightning in a Bottle and SXSW were cancelled this year, while Coachella and EDC were both postponed until the Fall. With a world class array of musical talent for the weekend and many additional music lovers travel from around the globe for their chance to dance late into the morning light; international flights and crowded sweaty nights – it’s not exactly where you want to be if you’re trying to explore social distancing; unfortunately, it even sounds like the type of place you’d really want to avoid.

As a tangent, you have to understand how each cog in the wheel in entertainment operates; if you’re in event production, each current event is using funds allocated from previous events…so without the funding from current projects, future events are in danger as well – not to mention there are boutique festivals who have their entire futures up in the air right now. There are artists and technicians, musicians and dancers, vendors and publicists whose livelihood depends on being able to be booked for these events. Needless to say, we’re all itching to get our grooves back.

But, the good news is that plenty of your favorite artists have their live sets online so you can kick back with a tasty beverage, turn your speakers up, open the windows and have yourself a little quarantine rave all of your own! I’ve compiled a list of my favorite live sets from throughout the years (yes, I mean years!), with a bounce around from genre to genre, festival to festival and artists to artist – I think I’ve got a pretty solid Friday night set. We’ve got Pumpkin and Hot Since 82, Above & Beyond and Ferry Corsten, Chase & Status, Netsky, Kaskade, Skrillex and so much more. I hope you enjoy as much as I loved putting this together. Now excuse me, while I go have a little Flashback Friday dance part all of my own!

Remember: we’re all in this together, so the least we can do is try and find moments of enjoyment, connection, and dance! If you have FaceTime, Twitch or any other type of video conferencing – turn it into a social, invite your friends and get down with the squad digitally. Enjoy, friends – and try and put something funky into your Friday.

---