The rise of Dom Dolla: what the DJ’s record-breaking stadium show for 60,000 fans tells us about music today

Dom Dolla’s enormous show in Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium set a new record for a solo EDM artist in Australia, and proves how the genre is dominating “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. Continue reading...