5 Highlights From John Summit’s Soaring Set at Billboard’s The Stage at SXSW

The crowd did a lot of the vocal heavy lifting when Summit played “Where You Are,” his 2024 hit with British singer Hayla near the top of the set, with thousands of people chanting the anthemic refrain along with the track. But for another pair of Summit’s biggest songs, he brought out the real thing, introducing Australian singer-songwriter Cloves to the stages to sing their January track “Focus” (currently in its 14th week on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs) and then inviting South Africa-born, U.K.-based vocalist Julia Church to close the show with their song “Go Back,” a collab with drum & bass legend Sub Focus. Both ladies sounded excellent and together brought a dynamic aspect to the night.

Bringing vocalists out during live shows is a regular occurrence at Summit sets, with the producer telling Billboard that he “f—ing loves it” when these collaborators get a huge crowd reaction, as they did on Saturday.

Spirits were palpably high throughout the Amphitheater, with the excited audience dressed to the nines in rave gear chic (sunglasses at night, heads wrapped in pashminas, etc.) and locked in from the jump. The thousands of assembled fans sung along in unison to the big songs, dancing hard during the drops and raising phones in tandem to capture moments like when Summit played his ravey remix of The Temper Trap’s 2008 classic “Sweet Disposition,” the dropping their devices to first pump during the song’s iconic “a moment, a love, a dream, aloud” lyrics. A special shout out to everyone who then headed to downtown Austin for the official afterparty, which featured another hypnotic performance by Nala and a late-night set from KSHMR.

While there was a lot was happening on stage in terms of pyro bursts and Summit’s ebullient presence — with the artist intermittently smiling at the crowd, enthusiastically singing along to the music and focusing on the decks — there was also a lot to look at on the giant screens behind him. The show’s visuals shifted between winding geometric patterns, glittery color splashes and logos for his Experts Only label that altogether gave a feeling of artsy, upscale psychedelia. The imagery was especially striking during “Focus,” with the on-screen visuals featuring the ’90s VHS-style visuals from the song’s ravey music video.

In the last year, Summit has played big-ass venues like Madison Square Garden in New York, Kia Forum in Los Angeles and a whole host of large festival stages around the world. Thus, seeing him in comparably intimate Moody Amphitheater (which holds approximately 5,000 people) felt like a increasingly rare opportunity. The size of the show also made it a bit more akin to Summit’s Experts Only party series, which has recently happened in place like Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Vail, Colo., and is focused on underground music in smaller, more club-like spaces. Thus, from nearly anywhere in the venue on Saturday, it was possible to see the producer bouncing around onstage in time with the music, with his excited energy equally as infectious as the music he played.

As the boss of his label, Experts Only, Summit both releases music by emerging artists and plays fresh output during his underground-oriented Experts Only sets. Saturday’s performance certainly didn’t skimp on any of Summit’s biggest tracks, with the artist playing the aforementioned “Where You Are,” “Go Back,” “Focus,” “Shiver” and his edit of The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition.”

But he also played lesser known music too, rinsing stuff like Nord Pole’s hella ravey 2018 track “Trancecatcher,” “Monks Dance,” a January release from producer Wthbrdrs and Subarctica’s 2011 “Storms of Silence,” with these well-curated tracks woven seamlessly with his own work via slick transitions. He also leaned into remixes, playing the Odd Mob edit of his own “palm of my hands,” his, Subtronic and Tape B’s wobbly edit of Sage the Gemini’s “Gas Pedal” and his own recently released remix of Anyma and Ellie Goulding’s “Hypnotized.” Summit closed the show by asking if the audience wanted to hear some dubstep, with the crowd welcoming to the genre with a big roar and Summit then playing some super grimey low end, seeming to shock even himself with the intensity, saying simply “holy s—” into the mic after the hard-hitting segment.