Lightning in a Bottle 2025 Review or (The expulsion of corporate influence on the evolution of art, and the transcendent experience of artistically-driven community)
Landing at Lightning in a Bottle, you’re greeted by the bright, clinking sound of hammers hitting stakes. The rugged fandom of EDM, those brave disciples of PLURR, prep for five days of camping: planting tents, hanging tapestries, and setting up for the 16th iteration of sweltering heat, loud music, and dance-till-you-drop setlists that will test their endurance and commitment to live electronic dance music.
Credit: Do Lab // Ivan Meneses (@ai.visuals)
This year’s festival saw the return of many fan-favorite installations, such as the Grand Artique and the Roller Rink. A new addition was a giant snake the length of a football field, made of plywood, bursting from the ground at the festival entrance; slithering out of Buena Vista Lake, the see-through creature bore massive fangs, and LED’s glowed a murderous red hue that pulsed from its bristling spine and imposing eyes.
Organizers also implemented artificial grass in front of most of the stages, presumably to keep down the dust and increase comfort for the daytime classes hosted there. This year’s activities included the usual yoga, qigong, and wellness courses, as well as the homeopathic spirituality seminars popular with white people sporting dreadlocks. If loosely strung together aphorisms about the spiritual benefits of exotic fruits were not to your liking, the Junkyard stage provided a non-stop mix of house music to entertain anyone brave enough to swim in the lake.
Credit: Do Lab // Julian Bajsel (@jbajsel)
Wednesday
Credit: Do Lab // Matt Gucci (@gucciphoto)
On day one, the campgrounds opened at 12 pm. Anyone arriving after 3 pm had to spend at least two hours in their car navigating the security line. Although well organized, the Bakersfield sun was intense and the line was slow and dusty, forcing drivers to keep their windows rolled up. Anyone without working A/C got to experience what it’s like being a dog locked in a hot car; it was the first test to weed out the weak ravers. But the pack mentality was strong, and as the sun went down and the crescent moon rolled up, the triumphant ravers let out a huge wolf howl that picked up from within the campground and spread far across the festival grounds.
Because the main stages were still under construction, music acts were relegated to the small stages. Stand out performances included Naughty Princess, who gathered a well-deserved early crowd with an eyelid rippling combination of hard style, dubstep, and bass, as well as Shamoun, who performed a Mesopotamian-influenced drone, combining house percussion with folk instruments such as the violin, dulcimer, flute, and what seemed to be a Buzuq. They were accompanied by a Sufi Whirling dancer, who spun across the center stage in shimmering white linen, pulling mesmerized onlookers into his orbit.
Thursday
Fresh off a long night of partying, over 200 ravers attended the 9 am yoga class at the Yoga Sol pavilion. The festival hosts a myriad of early morning classes, but this tent was consistently packed every morning. But fighting for competition was PabloKey at the Junkyard stage, who put on a riveting house set that was perfect for rolling out of downward dog and into a busy afternoon of music.
Credit: Do Lab // Jess Gallo (@helloatlasmedia)
Over at the mushroom-fringed Woogie stage, house DJ Azzecca was a baddie on the hi-hatties. Her brand of house utilized volume change to cleverly draw in her crowd’s attention. Rather than dropping out tracks and skimming the instrumentals to reduce volume, she literally seemed to turn down the master volume until the crowd could hear their own voices again, and then ripped it back up as she dropped into a new beat or segment. Maximizing her soundscape, and looking effortlessly cool doing it, Azzecca had the best set of the day, and put on one of the strongest house sets of the weekend.
Since it was early in the week, and the headlining acts weren’t scheduled until Friday and Saturday, the non-musical activities had a chance to thrive on Thursday night. The Yoga Sol tent hosted a blacklight yoga class accompanied by a live DJ, and under neon pink light, soft Bossa Nova tunes and funky city-pop paved the packed roller skating rink. But over at the learning kitchen, was Regular F*k’n Bingo.
Led by two raunchy, foul-mouthed senior citizens named George & Barb, the Learning Tent hosted the Regular Fuk’n Bingo comedy team for nightly games. The event was free to play, and would usually devolve into degenerate antics. On this particular night it got so out of hand, Barb was walking around with a dildo daring players to ‘wrap her c*ck’ and imitating sex acts with anyone brave or willing. And of course, all players won a prize.
Friday
The vibe shifted on day three when the 3-Day pass holders rolled into the festival grounds: walkways got tighter, crowds got larger, and the music got louder. Friday marked the opening of the festival’s main stages, Lightning and Thunder. The Lightning stage was inaugurated by a lackluster set from Andreasone and FMLY BZNS, who seemed to be relying on playback rather than any interesting live mixing, but the afternoon redeemed itself with an invigorating performance from Sri Lankan-Tamil/Swiss singer Priya Ragu. She put together a high-quality combination of traditional Sri Lankan vocals, pop song structures, and an EDM sound palette worthy of the weekend’s biggest stage.
Credit: Do Lab // Julian Bajsel (@jbajsel)
Over at the Thunder stage, the legendary Flowdan performed an exhilarating combo of drum and bass, grime, and UK jungle, which was followed by a highly anticipated set from dubstep producer PEEKABOO who swung out the gate with an epic and exemplary set of gravy-thick dubstep. Rounding out the night, Four Tet at the Lightning stage did a sort of Jean-Michelle Jarre-esque techno set while Troyboi at the Thunder stage had one of the most crowd-acclaimed performances of the entire weekend (this was measured by how many could be heard walking away saying “WOW”). A surprise 2 am house set from the legendary Zhu closed the night with a bang.
Saturday
Saturday was for drinking and drugging. As dust devils tore up the campsites and sent EZ-Ups sailing through the sky, attendees high on acid sailed in a different way, through the cosmos of the brightly colored stages (in and outside of their minds). The less inebriated individuals wound up at the Grand Artique, where a haberdashery of activities like baseball, talent shows, and dance competitions were underway in the hot, sunny afternoon. Devyn Brinsfield & Company ripped through a raucous and rowdy country set of originals and Johnny Cash tunes.
In addition to drugs, Saturday also had the most children in attendance, which was odd and slightly uncomfortable. Kids from the ages of three to fifteen wandered around the grounds with their parents, dancing at the sets and middling with adult bystanders. Although LiB is (in this reporter’s opinion) an inappropriate place for small children, kudos to the crowd; whenever a kid showed up, attendees seemed to sober up and behave around them, being respectful of their presence.
The rest of the night was off the hook. Cool sounds drew folks from stage to stage, each captivating in their own unique ways. Shygirl’s set was simple, but highly effective. She sang all of her own vocals in addition to DJ’ing, which brought a fresh element to the performance. And the bass was so rich and deep, it gave me heart palpitations when I stood too close.
Credit: Do Lab // Ivan Meneses (@ai.visuals)
This brings us to the best set of the weekend, Underworld. Supported by live vocals, the duo’s set was expressive, varied, and full of momentum. EDM is a relatively new genre that innovates faster than other genres because the technology evolves so quickly. But it’s finally been around long enough to have a historical tradition—a meta—from which to build upon, which Underworld executed with finesse. While this genre is built upon repetition, their use of it never felt excessive because it always led somewhere, utilizing motifs, movements, and catharsis in a way that provided a truly transcendent musical experience, rivalling that of the classical masters. Their performance was exemplary of why EDM music is doing for culture what Classical music used to do. As Stravinsky burnt it all down with “Rite of Spring,” it is born again from the fires of Underworld.
Sebastian and Yoshi agree. Both from San Diego, these festival-goers considered Underworld’s to be the best set of the weekend. “Underworld’s set took the cake. Best set of the weekend,” Yoshi said. “People come here for more than just the music, it’s connection. I’ll forever get emotional just talking about [it].” Sebastian, nodding his head, jumped in. “We’ve been doing this for the ones we lost, and this place really carries that energy,” he said. “We’ve experienced loss and so have a lot of people here who can relate and celebrate life with us. We came here for the music and found so much more than that.”
Sunday
Kicking off the final day of festivities was The Wandering Menstruals. A recurring staple of the Grand Artique, the band once again demonstrated why they are my fourth-favorite, all-women, country-folk band. Their commitment to country roots, Americana instrumentation, and general bad-as**ry leaves no question as to why this band gets invited back every year. Their endearing stage presence, hilarious but sober political commentary, and irresistible twang takes me back to the ‘good ol’ days’ playing Oregon Trail on my family PC. They also had the only performance of the weekend that ended in a cowboy gunfight.
The rest of the day saw a drop in attendance for the spirituality classes and a winding down at the Mixtape House Party, which was the best place to be for the sunset. Sitting on dusty couches, couples watched the dimming sun glimmer off the lake while the DJ played exclusively sentimental ballads. Across the way, the Grand Artique hosted their annual Talent Show, which was judged by a cast of silly characters who stole the show: Mystic Bartamus the Wandering Wizard (famous for training Merlin and opening for Dolly Parton), The Sisters of Perpetual Judgement (three women and a man of questionable puritan tradition), and Chubby the “Gayest Gay Guy in the World.”
Credit: Do Lab // Julian Bajsel (@jbajsel)
Credit: Do Lab // Julian Bajsel (@jbajsel)
Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Mystery Tour ignited the final night of music, with a genre-defying trip through a CD-ROM demo of a high-fantasy adventure game. The group sounded even better than they did at Wonderfront Festival, thanks to LiB’s superior sound systems. The band has confidently found their footing and are, at every level, firing on all cylinders. For anyone yearning to end the festival with a bang, Brainrack over at The Stacks played a thrashing set of dubstep and hardstyle reminiscent of the tones and sounds you’d get from a group like Death Grips.
Conclusion
2025 was undeniably a crazy year, and Lightning in a Bottle was undeniably a crazy time. Although there were many new additions to the grounds, many staples were missed, such as some of the interspersed art exhibits, the floating cuttlefish stage, and most notably, the fire dancers. Regardless, the organizers at the Do-Lab have crafted an extraordinary festival that wholeheartedly and genuinely celebrates music, art, and expression. Without a single corporate sponsor in sight, there were no distractions from the brilliant line-up, the out-of-this-world art installations, and, most importantly, memorably quirky people. For anyone trying to escape the bleakness of this world or find a new world to escape to, there’s nowhere like Lightning in a Bottle.
