World-famous DJ John Summit took over the Kia Forum in Inglewood for a three-day run, giving viewers a glimpse into his electric world. Summit has spent the past year being booked and busy playing events all over the world and giving fans a fresh performance every time, this one is no different.
The show started with an entire orchestra surrounding the DJ stand playing the intro to one of his most popular songs “Where You Are.” As fans began to recognize the melody and sing along, Summit walked out to take his spot on his stand. Electronic music began to mesh itself into the sounds of violins and cellos, and the beat for the song began to build. For a moment, classical music was joined with EDM beats until it officially transitioned into the original song reaching the peak climax before the beat drop. Summit, illuminated in light, welcomed his audience to their show with an arms wide open stance, and with that, the beat dropped and the show began.
For those not into the electronic dance music scene, most people can recognize John Summit’s commercially successful music such as La Danza, Shiver, Sweet Disposition, and Where You Are. He’s been able to bring house music into club and college spaces as there has been a shift in the popularity of the music genre as a whole. But who is John Summit and what is the enigma that has allowed him to rise this quickly to fame?
John Summit, now a well-known DJ, was at one point a full-time accountant at Ernest and Young who would work on producing music in his free time. Having attended college at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Summit would DJ during this time in his college scene. During this time, he would actively teach himself how to produce music through YouTube tutorials which is pretty admirable for those looking to shift into the music production side of things without going to school for it. After his career began to take off with his first release in 2020 named “Deep End”, he left accounting to begin djing full time.
There is an intrigue and deep appreciation amongst fans for having an “untraditional” yet very accessible start as most listeners do know this background of his. In recent times, however, there has been a bit of backlash towards his rise in popularity as there usually is whenever something becomes well-liked by the masses. Many music heads have claimed that his tracks are “basic” and have essentially become too mainstream. I counter that, there is a reason why mainstream music is mainstream, and that’s because it’s good.
Summit seemed to address these claims by a segment where he sampled Kanye West’s “I Love Kanye” which states what people miss about someone at the beginning of their career and contrasts it to who they are in their present day. Some of the lines were “I miss the old Summit, the dark tech house Summit…I hate the new summit, “Comfort in Chaos” Summit (his latest album). He also began to mix many of his well-known tracks into a heavier bass sound known as dubstep which was a nice surprise to his usual light dance house feels. It seems that rather than comment on anything, he is choosing to constantly up his game and show his new audience the versatility that he’s had from the start of his career that might have been overlooked in his fast rise.
Besides the music, his arena production was also phenomenal with the lighting play. There were multiple lights going at once all in different colors, some circling his at the dj stand, some pointing into the crowd, and others rotating the room. It created a constant whirlwind of color that most ravers are used to seeing at festivals which was a great homage to that music space he constantly performs in. He brought the rave festival experience to a concert setting. Paige Cavell was also brought out to sing live to their song “Tears”, and the previous night Julia Church was brought out to perform “Go Back” with the dj.
With openers such as Disco Lines, Fallon, and Jenessa Acosta, it was definitely one of the most memorable Summit performances I’ve witnessed, and we’re super excited to see what he has planned for the upcoming new year.
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