The 10 Best Sets We Saw at Electric Forest 2026

Performing their first ever b2b on Friday night in the round on the Honeycomb stage (located in the festival’s literal and spiritual center of Sherwood Forest), Jkyl & Hyde and Nikita the Wicked were, bluntly, incredible. The set merged their styles for a thrilling hour of heady, psychedelic bass music that felt extremely well suited for the 2:30 to 3:30 a.m. set time. The California-based Jkyl & Hyde called the show one of the best nights of his life, while the Kentucky-born, California-based Nikita just danced with abandon, as did we.

GRiZ has a long history at Electric Forest and has headlined in years prior, but there was something about his Friday night mainstage performance that felt like a new level of ascendency. Playing Forest for the first time since he ended his hiatus, the artist drew a crowd that was not only huge, but buzzing. All day at the festival, in the lines for food or drinks or showers, attendees could be heard talking about their plans for the show, and their excitement about it. GRiZ was seen on many attendees, with a few campsites flying flags witt his logo on them.

And GRiZ lived up to this hype, playing a nearly two hour set that married funk, dubstep and hip-hop and generally just felt like a big-ass party, from the fireworks that eventually lit the sky to the moment when he just played “Shout” by The Isley Brothers like we were all on the dancefloor at a wedding. (“BOLD!”one person in the crowd shouted when he dropped it.) The set saw him bring out a trumpet player, rapper ProbCause (a regular collaborator) and producer/vocalist Kaleena Zanders, who often appears during his big sets. Altogether, this group hang on stage lifted the group hang in the crowd, with GRiZ sincerely thanking the crowd for the opportunity to live out his dream. His gratitude was palpable, and certainly reciprocated by the crowd.

The Saturday night Tripolee stage set by experimental bass producer Ravenscoon was hard — all sharp-edged beats and heavy drops — but also beautifully soft. Towards the end of the show, the Georgia-born artist got on the mic to say that his performance was a testament to “never, ever, ever” giving up. He told the packed crowd, one of the biggest we saw over the entire weekend, that ten years ago he himself was at Electric Forest watching his favorite artists play, and that while he’s long dealt with mental health and addiction issues, his show was a testament to simply continuing to try. He asked anyone in the crowd going through something difficult to hold up their phone lights so they could see they weren’t alone. There were a lot of lights, tears and hugs from friends, family and strangers. And through it all, dancing.

“Face melting bass music” is a common colloquialism in certain realms of electronic music, but never have I actually felt the skin of my face rattle until Friday evening, when U.K. producer Casey Club played a ferocious hour on The Observatory stage. The set emphasized why he’s one of the rising artists we’re currently most excited about, as he ripped through dubstep that hit like a nail gun and interspersed the set with a choice batch of new classics including RL Grimes’ 2014 essential “Core” and a wavy take on Jack Ü and Justin Bieber’s 2015 hit “Where Are Ü Now.” He closed the show with London Grammar’s 2013 “Hey Now,” a poignant, pretty chef’s kiss on one of the weekend’s most riveting performances.

The singer and violinist, who was raised in a Colombian-Nicaraguan household between Florida and Kentucky, played Saturday’s Pride Takeover run of shows on the Honeycomb stage, with the sunlight filtering through the trees and bubbles floating in the air over the crowd creating a golden hour atmosphere. Culto was of course central to this vibe, with the artist telling the crowd about going no contact with his family after coming out and then singing a song about his relationship with his sister. Culto has gravitas, swagger and serious star quality, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see him on a bigger stage next year.

Excision has been a dominant force in dubstep for so long it’s perhaps easy to take him for granted, but his Thursday night show on the Ranch Arena stage effectively functioned like a tractor beam as it pulled in passersby, with a few casual fans fully headbanging on the rail by the time the performance was over. From the monsters and gladiators motifs of the visuals to the sound of the music itself, the set was an exercise in aggression, with the artist born Jeff Abel also creating some balance by weaving in edits of pop-leaning fare like Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been” and The Cranberries’ “Zombie” (all of which inevitably built to big ‘ol drops.) “Come to Lost Lands!” the artist said on the mic to the crowd at the end of his set, referencing his own annual festival in Ohio, and given what an epic and tone-setting show he delivered, we’re genuinely considering it.

When we spoke with her in April, Kaleena Zanders told us about about her love of Y2K-era nu-metal that she enjoyed as a listener and also used to perform as part of a hardcore band. As such, it was a sick move for her to just incorporate samples of artists like Rage Against the Machine and Korn into her Friday afternoon set on the festival’s big Sherwood Court stage. She deftly balanced heavy bass and dubstep with her house-leaning output, playing remixes along with her own original material. (Some of it from her great recently released album, Anything Goes.) Despite the heat and sunshine, there was a full-body goosebumps moment when she played an inventive edit of Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” mostly removing Steven Tyler’s vocals and singing the song live with her own powerhouse vocals. It was also a pleasure to see her again later that night during GRiZ’s set on the mainstage, where she brought the same swagger and skill.

Anyone who’s only familiar with this duo via their big hit with Diplo, “On My Mind,” should absolutely get more fully on board with Sidepiece. Playing Sherwood Court of Friday night, the pair — Party Favor and Nitti — flexed how unabashedly fun their music is and has always been, playing both their original output and edits of songs like Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and the Calvin Harris/Florence Welch classic “Sweet Nothing.” Sharp, slick and unpretentious, this set was simply an extremely good time.

The legendary jam band has headlined Electric Forest annually since its earliest years, with their presence as the festival’s unofficial house band creating continuity and honoring the festival’s jam roots. The band’s three-hour-and-45-minute (!) set at the Ranch Arena on Saturday drew out many of the festival’s longtime attendees, with the performance (a segment of which was played with electronic innovator Shpongle) adding a refreshing analog vibe to the heavily electronic festival, while reminding everyone exactly why the group has anchored this festival for so long. While technical difficulties forced the delay of the second set, the show eventually reached its traditional “shebang” moment (a blissful closing ritual of the Forest show), which this year culminated in a fireworks display that could be seen from throughout the fest.

Channel Tres played the Ranch Arena on Saturday night, a rare vocalist headliner in a slot typically reserved for bands and big DJ sets. (Tres is of course also a DJ, and played a slot during the Pride Takeover on the Honeycomb stage earlier in the day.) On the mainstage, the Los Angeles-based artist held it down and then some, warming up the crowd with some simmering output before building up a big, funky, exciting energy as he played songs like his “Black Techno Guy” and his take on En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind.” He at one point asked the crowd to cheer harder, given that he’s “a gay Black man from Compton out here in the forest,” a request which the audience happily obliged. The ambience was amplified by the pair of extremely swaggy, agile dancers he had alongside him, with the crowd losing it when he did his SG Lewis and Robyn collab “Impact,” and also showing genuine love for the unreleased material he debuted.