Today, Avicii announced he is retiring from live performances. While this comes as a shock and a disappointment to many, his longtime fans have seen the writing on the wall for some time now. Often times when producers make the move to DJing, it’s a struggle to adapt. Sometimes when an artist begins performing for the first time they have a great repetoire of originals, edits, and mashups, but then the juice runs out. Some might say this was the case for Avicii, as he astounded fans during his first circuit of live performances in 2011 and 2012 and struggled to rekindle the live performance flame after that. His most recent live sets have befuddled fans and served mainly as previews of tracks he’s been working on with few transitions or flow.
Rather than focus on the negative, let’s take a look back at Avicii when he was arguably at his performance prime during his first spat of performances. This 3 hour set from New Years Eve 2011 at Pier 94 is jam packed with all of Avicii’s progressive house goodness, which today you might only ever hear a sliver of. This also happens to be during the 2011-2012 Swedish house glory days, which hold a special place in dance music fans’ hearts regardless. Sit back, listen, and hope that maybe someday we will hear this Avicii again. You can also check out the full tracklist here.