Secret Sky 2021
Let’s cut to the chase – Porter Robinson blessed us once again with his new and improved rendition of Secret Sky earlier this Spring. Bringing in artists such as Kero Kero Bonito, Swardy, and Rezz, Secret Sky had music from varying genres and was an amazing representation of the diversity within the music industry.
Secret Sky took virtual festivals to the next level. As per Robinson’s aesthetic, you could see a resemblance of environment design and overall visuals to his previous virtual events. Similarly, attendees could explore an open world setting through their browsers or VR, this time with various themed rooms! For example, you could go up a massive tree for a bird’s eye view of the show and fireworks, or head to the Cube room which made the sets 10x trippier… must say it was my favourite.
The best feature though (in my opinion) was the ability to voice chat with others! You could waddle up to others and engage in insightful conversations both about the sets and other topics. My favourite was when a group of us started discussing what category of food bananas belong to – fruit or berry…
If you were lucky, you could even bump into some of the artists themselves hanging around! See a short clip of me freaking out about being in the virtual presence of Rezz herself below.
DJ Potaro Secret Sky 2021 Set
Kero Kero Bonito Secret Sky 2021 Set
Laxcity Secret Sky 2021 Set
IMMANU b2b Buunshin Secret Sky 2021 Set
James Ivy Secret Sky 2021 Set
Yvette Young Secret Sky 2021 Set
Wave Racer Secret Sky 2021 Set
Serph Secret Sky 2021 Set
Salute Secret Sky 2021 Set
Boys Noize Secret Sky 2021 Set
No Rome Secret Sky 2021 Set
Swardy Secret Sky 2021 Set
Bauuer Secret Sky 2021 Set
End of the World Secret Sky 2021 Set
Rezz Secret Sky 2021 Set (unofficial)
Porter Robinson Secret Sky 2021 Set
Now moving on to the core of the festival – the amazing artists. If you, like me, weren’t able to attend all sets, you can find links to them on YouTube above! My favourites have to be DJ Potaro, Swardy, Rezz, and Porter Robinson himself.
DJ Potaro was an incredible opener and truly carried the weight of the whole fest on his cute shoulders (does Potaro even have shoulders?).
Swardy had THE most creative set and fully turned his performance into a short film. It was a stunning blend of surreal environments, cute puppet characters, and all the stress of managing instruments for Swardy’s live performance.
Rezz, aka Space Mom, really got everyone swooning and hypnotized by her signature glasses and red overall straps. With Hypnocurrency’s live debut, tributes to i_o, as well as an unreleased track with Eddie, Rezz’s set was insane and got me aggressively jumping and head-banging in my living room.
Last, but most definitely not least, Porter Robinson shook us all to the core with his first live performance of Nurture surrounded by a massive wall to floor LED screen stage. Porter’s set had me on a roller coaster of emotions – from happily dancing, to weeping at his comments about his partner, to dancing again to mashups of older tracks. The performance was absolutely breathtaking, and I am so sorry for my friends who had to endure my constant messages about Porter’s setlist…
Secret Sky was an amazing experience and did its part in nurturing the electronic music community in times where we’re all stuck at home and missing festivals and raves. Highly recommend re-watching the sets and fantasizing about being in a field of sweaty, half-naked music lovers.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go freak out over Porter’s announcement of Second Sky happening in Berkley, CA this upcoming fall. Stay tuned for a post on the topic soon!