Last April, Swedish house DJ Avicii, aka Tim Bergling, let a somewhat obvious cat out of an already transparent bag when he admitted that most major DJ's sets are pre-programmed. The dance community, like a laptop Magic Circle, denied this vehemently and Avicii retracted his comments, but the world's third biggest DJ and EDM frontrunner left us with the image of an artist who merely twiddles the volume knob and plays air synth for $250,000 a night.

He could be streaming his two hours of Ibizan whoomps, thumping oontz-oontzes and sampled soul platitudes straight off Kiss FM for all the 30,000 arm-flailers of Earls Court care, but he nonetheless atones for his gaffe with a night of sheer spectacle. Bergling's Vegas residencies have rubbed off: eight layers of lasers form dense neon mesh-works and tower blocks of sizzle, his drops are heralded with more fire and steam than Backdraft and his podium is a gigantic diamond-shaped screen pumping out lavish visuals of swilling champagne and melting fractals. It's a stadium-worthy display for tracks that are ultimately destined to soundtrack a tragic blackout case slithering from the Love Lift.

To prove he's no mindless play-presser, Bergling peppers his own hits – a cut-glass Diamonds, the disco gospel Addicted to You and Smokey Robinson's Tracks of My Tears reworked as a melodic rave Kraken – with snippets of local colour from Disclosure, Primal Scream, Underworld and Florence and the Machine. There's even a slab of Arctic Monkeys' Do I Wanna Know?, which baffles the crowd motionless. There's exploratory crossover intent here: Avicii worked with metal and bluegrass musicians, plus Antony Hegarty and Nile Rodgers, on his debut album True and tonight's encore Wake Me Up caused uproar when premiered with a live band at Miami's Ultra dance festival last March, as it so shamelessly bounces on the hay bales of Mumford. But besides Wake Me Up, and for all his experimental bent, melodic focus and relentless intensity, Avicii is short on iconic hooks and fresh house formulas: there's little sign of an EDM reboot tonight. Production-wise, though, this is rave's next level.

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