Untold 2024 - My Top Performances

Top acts

Alex Super Beats was sensational. He played exactly the right music at the right time and I felt amazing. He brought two guests, DJ Ma-ta, who was great, and Vlad Fluieraru, who wasn’t quite as impressive. I really like his chaotic DnB-to-hardstyle style, and I respect him a lot as a person too, for his energy and for being a local artist.
Timmy Trumpet destroyed it with his energy and put on a fantastic show. He played a lot of trumpet, and his DJ set felt really solid and energetic. Perfect for a main stage act.
Bogdan Vix was incredible as usual. He started slow on Thursday, when I didn’t enjoy it as much, but then he was phenomenal Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, even though I wasn’t really in the mood to dance and I was cold, I still appreciated it a lot. Sunday though, I was in the mood to have fun and I moved non-stop, it was wonderful. His mixes were excellent and I love that he’s local too. Hardstyle is exactly what I want at a festival.
Martin Garrix also exceeded expectations. I’ve seen him live many times, and pre-covid he wasn’t one of my favorites, his style always felt less powerful than other DJs. It felt more melodic and without the intensity I prefer, similar to David Guetta. But both last year and this year he was impressive. I didn’t even catch the start, I arrived with just over an hour left and it was still amazing, a really good DJ set. He even remixed some Lewis Capaldi songs.
Steve Aoki was fantastic, I liked him more than last time and he reminded me of the pre-covid energy I loved so much. He brought Irina Rimes on stage plus another guest and put together a memorable show. He threw a lot of cakes and I had a great time watching everyone covered in cream, especially the poor second guest who took a whole cake straight to the face. I’m really glad I saw him, and maybe I should’ve pushed closer to the front to enjoy it even more.
Sam Smith gave the best show. It’s hard to compare him to the others because he’s so different, and unfortunately I just don’t like him enough to beat out the fantastic EDM moments. At the end of the day, it’s an electronic music festival and that’s what I came for. I enjoyed the moment and the show a lot, but it wasn’t my favorite because I wasn’t quite ready for that kind of concert. I like his songs a lot, but I think it just wasn’t the right moment. That said, he put on one of the most beautiful shows I’ve seen, sang flawlessly and created a really pleasant atmosphere. The costumes were really interesting and I was very happy to see the queer show get such a good reception. I love queer shows and this was among the best I’ve seen.
Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike were OK, but that’s about it, unfortunately. They had a nice DJ set, but barely did any crowd control. I was so excited for them, given they used to cause the biggest chaos in the world pre-covid. The two times I saw them before were some of my best experiences at an EDM festival, and now I feel like they weren’t on form and didn’t have that same energy. Still, the DJ set was good and I still like them a lot. I can’t quite tell if it was just an off night for them, if I’m misremembering how good they were pre-covid, or if they’ve simply changed their style since. I get the feeling top EDM DJs are drifting a bit softer, I noticed this last year too with a few of them, David Guetta, Steve Aoki or Armin for example, though Martin Garrix has actually been more intense than a few years ago, both last year and this year. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any thread anywhere about their DJ set. I’ll try to figure it out.
Swedish House Mafia were pretty similar, a really good DJ set and I enjoyed it, just without the energy I felt at the sets mentioned above. I expected them to play more of their own songs, and I would’ve liked more well-known tracks mixed at a faster, more intense pace. But that’s just what I like, it’s not their style, and there are others who do that plenty. This is also about my own expectations and how I felt in the moment. Same as above, I was really happy I saw them, it was genuinely moving when they played “Don’t You Worry Child.”
Puya also put on an incredible show and it was packed, beyond my expectations. I can’t say anything specific impressed me, honestly, I couldn’t even see the stage well from where I was standing. I loved how full it was and how fantastic the atmosphere was, he could easily be on the main stage next year. And the nice part was that we all met up there and had a great time together.
Macky Gee was incredible and we had a blast to his beats on the last day. We really wanted some DnB when we went to see him and I felt amazing. He played great music, I really liked it, though nothing stuck with me enough to rank him higher, unfortunately. I didn’t catch him from the very start, but it was enough to feel great and remember his set fondly. If he comes back and there’s no one I like more at the same time, I’ll definitely go again.

I’m sorry I didn’t make it to DJ Ma-ta and Fisher, I heard they were incredible. I really want to see them another time.

Others I caught along the way

Artists I saw and enjoyed, but didn’t stay long enough for or weren’t quite my style enough to make the top list:

Alok was really cool, but I only caught a bit of him since I was fighting to get to the front for DV&LM. Hope to see him another time.
Netsky played well, but I wasn’t really in the mood at that moment.
Purple Disco Machine were cool, but not memorable, I don’t remember much. They also played Thursday, it’s been a while.
Black Coffee felt good, but unfortunately not really my genre. I appreciate that it sounded good, I just didn’t have fun dancing to it. Same with Daydreaming, sounds good in theory, but I’ve never really had fun at a deeper set like that.
Satra Benz had a cool atmosphere, but they’re not really my style, and they played “Prietena ta” while I was in the bathroom. The rest of the Alchemy lineup was similar, I don’t even remember who else played. Except for the guy who said something about the national team and played the Champions League anthem, that moment felt pretty off.
Dub FX I caught for half an hour until Alex Super Beats came on and put on a really cool show. Afterwards I caught him again briefly at Daydreaming and it wasn’t great, if he comes back to Alchemy I hope to catch him from the start.
Rodriguez Jr. was really great at Daydreaming.
Not sure who was playing on the tram, but it was really bad in there.
It was cool at Red Bull, like a good club night.

Lessons learned

Eat at the festival. Eating outside takes way too long and makes no sense. The perfect order for a day is to wake up at 2:30, eat something in the morning, meet up at someone’s place at 4-4:30, then head to the festival around 6:30.
Timing the drinking matters. Saturday and Sunday worked best, especially Saturday. Start early at home, where it’s cheap and good, and drink everything I want early on until around 12, when the bathrooms are free too. After that it’s best to stop and drink water.
Study the lineup a bit better. Two years ago I studied it too much and it didn’t help, this time I studied it too little and a bit of research would’ve helped. There were a few artists I wanted to see and didn’t know about: hardstyle at Fortune on the first night before Bogdan Vix, DJ Ma-ta on the tram playing manele, and Fisher on the last day who apparently was really cool. I should also look into the main stage acts a bit more, for example Alok and Martin Garrix were really cool and it would’ve been easy to know that beforehand. For Martin Garrix I just needed to remember how great he was last year, it’s part of why I wrote all this down.
The tram experience is really cool, definitely worth going on Thursday or Sunday when it’s less crowded.