On Oct. 28, electronic titans Kaytranada and Justice transformed Viejas Arena into a pulsing night of light and bass. The concert delivered one of San Diego State University’s most immersive and energetic live music events of the semester — one that celebrated electronic lineage as much as spectacle.
The night opened with Scottish producer Sam Gellaitry. His chilled, melodic textures steadily built into the bass audiences could feel, even from outside the venue. His stage presence was low-key but confident, using fluid builds rather than theatrics and easing the crowd into motion before closing with his hit “Assumptions.” For a venue that would become a dance floor by the night’s midpoint, the opener functioned like a well-paced ignition.
“I’d never listened to Sam before,” said Lexi Romero, a sociology major at SDSU. “But he did exactly what an opener should — he had everyone swaying, then passing the energy upward into the night.”
The arena’s pulse shifted when Kaytranada took the stage, standing on top of a floating platform bathed in laser light. Midway into his set, he joked that he had “forgotten the uniform back in LA,” performing in a stripped-down undershirt fit that emphasized closeness over theatrics. The wardrobe simplification unintentionally sharpened the experience. Instead of a performer commanding a stage, the audience felt invited into his orbit.
Kaytranada’s set leaned into groove-oriented craftsmanship, featuring mixes that breathed and unfolded. Crowd favorites “Witchy,” “Intimidated” and a reshaped edit of “Be Your Girl” floated effortlessly from one blend into another. Every shift felt like a new vibe that the entire venue went along with effortlessly.
“It felt a lot like how clubs try to feel,” said Samir Patel, an EDM enthusiast and concert-goer. “At times it feels like he doesn’t just play songs — he designs the space you’re standing in.”
Rather than bombard listeners with harsh bass, Kaytranada sculpted them into a crowd that moved as one. The arena wasn’t reacting to him — it was moving with him.
Where Kaytranada built intimacy, Justice commanded scale.
The French duo appeared behind their towering wall of light arrays, combining industrial edges and cinematic glow in their stage design. Their performance made it clear why they are often regarded as the spiritual successors to Daft Punk. This reputation is not from imitation — but from preserving the philosophy of French Touch: melody as architecture, analog texture as physical sensation and their expertise in phenomenal stagecraft.
Their backdrop frequently collapsed into starfields, pulsing spotlights and dazzling lasers that swallowed the stage. During “D.A.N.C.E.,” the screen and the floor they stood on ignited into mesmerizing glimmers of gold and yellow, while the crowd jumped to the beat.
“Neverender,” their smash collaboration with Tame Impala, became one of the night’s loudest sing-alongs as beams fanned outward across the arena, enveloping the duo in dazzling aesthetics.
Unlike Kaytranada’s stripped-down finesse, Justice performed through spectacle, the kind that fills every inch of an arena and leaves no area unlit.
Nearly every seat became a dance floor, as attendees were swaying, spinning and pulsing in sync with the beat. Even security guards struggled not to nod along in the walkthrough lanes. The energy didn’t waiver between sets but escalated, becoming layered, compounding and communal.
What began as a concert grew into something closer to kinetic congregation – a three-act evolution of atmosphere, intimacy and spectacle.
The lineage of the EDM genre on display that night was not accidental — it was cultural context in motion.
Justice continues to serve as the most enduring bridge to the era Daft Punk left behind in 2021 when the helmeted duo retired. While Justice carries forward French Touch traditions of analog crunch and massive visual storytelling, Kaytranada represents a newer generational shift: the globalization of the house genre through intimacy, identity and production as emotional storytelling.
Together on a single bill, they formed a snapshot of electronic music’s ongoing evolution, depicting its past, present and trajectory intersecting on the same stage.
By the time Justice brought the arena to its roaring finale, the show had become more than a stacked tour stop — it was a case study in how electronic performance can still feel human, spiritual and large enough to swallow a room whole.
“It’s the kind of show that makes you remember why people fall in love with live music in the first place,” said Mario Espinoza, a second-year computer science major at SDSU. “You don’t just hear it — you feel claimed by it.”
