Carl Cox
Awakenings Festival 2025
The king returns, and so do the lads who only take their shirts off when the BPM goes above 130. You can always spot the Awakenings veterans—they're the ones doing aggressive lunges by the speaker stacks while looking like they haven't consumed a solid meal since Thursday. Bless this wonderful, sweaty culture. The colossal, sun-drenched arena of Awakenings Festival 2025 was a thumping, hedonistic paradise, shaking violently under the sheer power of the festival’s legendary sound system. Peering into the Carl Cox Awakenings Festival 2025 tracklist, it’s a masterclass in main-stage Techno artillery.
Driving hard at a 136.0 BPM average, Big Carl locks the massive crowd into 12A and 3B Camelot keys, generating an inescapable, rolling groove. The energy is a relentless, low-end assault, perfectly balanced with crisp, driving hi-hats that keep the momentum pushing forward. His three-deck mixing is legendary, manipulating EQs with a fluidity that most DJs can only dream of. The crate digging here is delightfully unhinged and properly sorted. Opening a techno set with Gillette's "Short, Short Man" is a massive laugh, while dropping Sash!'s "Encore Une Fois" is a pure 90s rave nostalgia trip.
It’s a brilliant blend of serious techno tools and cheeky crowd-pleasers. This Carl Cox live set is an absolute steamroller. He kicks the doors off immediately with the opening track "Short, Short Man" by Gillette & 20 Fingers, batters the crowd into submission, and peaks with the ferocious energy of Matt O'Brien's "Serotone." He finally lets the survivors go home with the massive closing track "That Place" by Vikthor, wrapping up absolute scenes.