Fred Again headlines the closing night of the UK’s 2024 Leeds Festival.
Photographer: Thomas Jackson/Alamy
Weekend Feature
The Dance Floor Is Disappearing In a Sea of Phones
Electronic music’s club culture is facing an existential moment as bigger venues, higher ticket prices and social media turn dance floors into spectator events.
In 2021, when the world was deep in the throes of Covid-19, English electronic producer Fred Again and his fellow DJ, the Blessed Madonna, met over Zoom to talk about the emotional weight of lockdown.
“We’ve lost dancing,” she said. “We’ve lost hugs with friends, and people that we loved, all these things that we took for granted.”