IT’S NO SURPRISE at this point that the electronic music scene can support its own touring festival; what’s incredible is that there hasn’t been one before the Identity Festival, which comes to Shoreline this week. What it brings with it is a living evolutionary chart of electronic music’s explosion. Back in the ’90s, the Crystal Method was the soundtrack for the booming rave scene. Along with the Chemical Brothers, the duo blew the sound of electronic dance wide open, giving it rock muscle and mainstream appeal. Their brand of dance music was intelligent (which, back then, was considered a contradiction in terms), but was also candy for the eardrums. As one of Identity’s elder-statesman headliners (along with the always strange “trance fusion” pioneers the Disco Biscuits), they’ll share a bill with several of the artists they’ve influenced from across the fractured substrata of electro—globe-trotting, Vegas-pool-partying DJ Kaskade, who broke out in 2001 with “What I Say”; sample-crazed, funk-worshipping Derek Vincent Smith (aka Pretty Lights); electropop duo Holy Ghost!; German house act Booka Shade and many more. With supporting acts like Steve Aoki, White Shadow, Pete Tong, Jessie and the Toy Boys, Le Castle Vania and more, there isn’t a subgenre of electronic that won’t be repped.
Shoreline Amphitheatre
Saturday, Sept. 3
2pm; $50.
