Moby on How Britain Invented Rave Culture: "You Guys Did Something Amazing"

Moby headlined the 2026 On The Beach Festival, marking his first major outdoor festival headline set in almost 25 years. Before closing the show, he addressed the crowd with his take on the origins of British rave culture, crediting his friend, DJ and producer Frankie Knuckles, with "inventing house music" after relocating from New York to Chicago — but arguing that it was British pioneers Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Pete Tong and Carl Cox who "invented rave culture" itself.

An onstage tribute to 1991 and Rozalla

Moby told the crowd he's been an "Anglophile" since age six, discovering music through British bands like Sex Pistols, The Clash, Public Image Ltd, Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen. He recalled attending a 1991 UK rave called Rain Dance, where a crowd of 10,000 people threw their hands up together when the DJ dropped Rozalla's "Everybody's Free" — a moment that stuck with him.

He dedicated his closing song of the night to "the spirit of rave culture that you invented and have kept alive since the '90s."

Setlist highlights from On The Beach Festival

Moby's set drew on career highlights including "We Are All Made of Stars," "Extreme Ways," "Porcelain" and "Natural Blues," closing the night with his 1994 track "Feeling So Real."

The Madonna accent story

In a 2023 NME interview for the Does Rock 'N' Roll Kill Braincells?! series, Moby said that after David Bowie, his "second favorite band was Joy Division" — his high school band covered several Joy Division songs, and his yearbook quote came from "Love Will Tear Us Apart." He admitted that to avoid being pegged as "a punk kid from the suburbs," he once tried Madonna's trick of "pretending to be British," resulting in what he described as a "bad Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins" accent.