Young MC is the latest artist to walk away from the lineup of the Great American State Fair, the event celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.

The “Bust a Move” rapper was initially announced to the bill, alongside the likes of Martina McBride, Flo Rida, C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, The Commodores, and others, all of them participating in the 16-day “national exposition” kicking off June 25 and wrapping up July 10, with musical performances every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

In a social post, Young MC confirms he is out. “I HAVE INFORMED MY AGENTS THAT I WILL NOT BE PERFORMING AT THE FREEDOM 250 EVENT,” he writes. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event. And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is non-partisan, SPIN magazine describes it as Trump-backed. I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”

A description on the Freedom 250 website downplays the political angle of the 250^th anniversary event. “The celebration will unite and showcase all 56 U.S. states and territories in a single World’s Fair-scale event,” reads the blurb. “This is an opportunity for visitors from across America to experience an unforgettable celebration of the people and traditions that define our nation.”

Also featuring carnival rides and stations showcasing the cultures of all 56 American states and territories, the festival will mark the finale of President Donald Trump’s year-long Great American State Fair, which also involves activations in state fairs across the country. The twice-impeached president first previewed plans for the celebrations in July last year, with the White House promising at the time that the administration would “throw the greatest birthday party in American history.”

Young MC joins Morris Day & The Time, which separately left the line-up with the message: “Contrary To Rumor, Morris Day & The Time Will Not Be Performing At The ‘GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR.’” A caption for the post adds “It’s a no for me,” with a smiley-face emoji wearing sunglasses.

Born in London, England, to Jamaican immigrant parents, and raised in New York city, the 59-year-old Young MC (real name: Marvin Young) was one of hip-hop’s earliest hitmakers on the Billboard charts, and enjoyed several top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

As a songwriter, he’s credited with two 1989 smashes for Tone-Loc that enjoyed crossovers, not just in the U.S. music scene but on charts and airwaves around the globe. “Wild Thing” went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 – at the time, the genre’s highest peaking hit on the flagship chart – while “Funky Cold Medina” nearly duplicated the feat, reaching a No. 3 best. In the same year, he nabbed another classic, this time as a solo artist with “Bust a Move,” which blasted to No. 7 on the Hot 100 and won a Grammy Award for best rap performance.

Delta Goodrem one year, Keli Holiday the next?

The Australian singer, songwriter and co-founder of award-winning electronic duo Peking Duk isn’t against the idea of following in Delta’s footsteps and representing Australia at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Holiday (real name: Adam Hyde) stopped by Triple M’s “Mick In The Morning” on Wednesday, May 27 for a chat with co-hosts Mick Molloy, Rosie Walton, and Nick Riewoldt.

While on air, funnyman Molloy pitched the idea of Holiday throwing his hat into the glittery ring that is Eurovision. “I had a fever dream the other day,” Molloy remarked, “you would win us Eurovision.” He continued, “it’s possibly of no interest to you… it’d be incredible. You go there and do that (“Dancing2” dance), and they would lose their minds.”

Holiday was on the same page. “No, I would give it a crack. We could do it,” he enthused.

Goodrem is a hard act to follow. With her performance of “Eclipse” earlier this month at Wiener Stadthalle, Austria, Australia placed fourth overall — the country’s second-highest finish in the contest’s history, behind only Dami Im’s runner-up effort a decade earlier, in 2016. Bulgaria will host Eurovision 2027 after DARA won in Vienna with “Bangaranga.”

Holiday is flying high right now, thanks to his viral hit “Dancing2,” song of the year winner at the 2025 ARIA Awards. Its parent album, Capital Fiction, opened at No. 3 on the all-genres ARIA Albums Chart in February, and topped the national Australian albums tally. The Canberra-based artist supported the record with a national tour in March that went deep into regional Australia, and headed abroad with his first-ever run of dates in North America.

That’s where Holiday was, briefly, grounded.

As previously reported, Holiday says he was denied re-entry into the United States during that trek, forcing him to cancel a planned New York City performance and return home early. “Unfortunately I’m not going to make it to tonight’s show at Baby’s All Right in NYC,” Holiday wrote on Instagram in March. “I have spent all day detained at the Canadian border and denied entry back into the U.S. despite having the proper visa documentation in place.”

Speaking this week on breakfast radio, Holiday said he can’t wait to get back. “I was meant to go to Ol’ Mates [a pub connected to Aussie comedians Hamish Blake and Andy Lee], I was going to do a surprise set there and have a bunch of fun with a bunch of people,” he remarked. “I’m not at liberty to discuss such matters fully at this time… (laughs)… but what I will say, is that I love the United States. I’m gutted I couldn’t do the New York City show, and I hope to get back there soon because there is a lot of people wanting a Keli Holliday show, but I want to bring it to them, so we’ll see.”

The Keli Holiday experience continues with tour dates Down Under, followed by shows in the United Kingdom and Europe through June.

Stream the “Mick In The Morning” interview below.

As the title character of The Who’s Tommy in its 2024 Broadway revival, Ali Louis Bourzgui sang the show’s most famous refrain: “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.” That production ran for a too-short four months, but Bourzgui’s haunting voice and magnetic presence left a lasting impression. And two years later, those words he sang as Tommy encapsulate oddly well the ethos — both spoken and not — of his latest role.

As David — the vampire rock star of The Lost Boys, the new musical based on the ‘80s cult-favorite movie of the same name — Bourzgui has to believably telegraph both seductive danger and deep hurt, while often flying high above the stage (and rocking one of the more memorable wigs ever seen on Broadway). The role was made famous in the film by a young Kiefer Sutherland, but Bourzgui imbues it fully with his own charisma — a performance that earned him a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical.

“You get auditions sent to you, and most of them, you’re kind of like, ‘This is cool, I can’t really get a grasp of the vibe of this show, but I’ll audition.’ And every once in a while, something comes through where you just feel it tangibly, even through an email,” Bourzgui recalls of first hearing about The Lost Boys. “I saw this initial packet, and I got so excited — like more excited than I’ve been for an audition maybe ever.” 

Much of that had to do with meeting Tony-winning director Michael Arden and hearing demos by The Rescues, the Los Angeles indie band who wrote music and lyrics for the Lost Boys (“I was like oh, these songs are f—ing cool”). But the character of David himself was, Bourzugui says, “so well-written from the start.” Overall, he was struck by how The Lost Boys, despite its big show intentions (and budget), felt like something more intimate, built from the ground up — a feeling that the production ultimately preserves even in the uniquely cavernous space of Broadway’s Palace Theater. 

With traces of glitter still on his face from the day’s matinee, Bourzgui (who is himself a singer/songwriter) spoke to Billboard from his dressing room before a much-needed physical therapy session about how to play a non-cliché vampire, his rock star inspirations, and embracing his own unique voice. 

Movie-to-musical adaptations are popular these days, but it’s rare that they actually work well — and this is one of those rare ones that feels natural onstage. Did you get that sense from the beginning?

Yeah, and I also don’t think I necessarily would have sprung for it if it felt like a generic movie remake, because that’s not the kind of thing I want to be doing. I’ve always kind of been one of those audience members who’s been a little “harrumph” about everything being a movie musical, everything coming from [pre-existent] IP; I am an absolute supporter of completely original work, so that’s what I usually dive towards. But I could tell that this was that, still, somehow. And it’s only proven to be true, and I think it’s also why people are connected to it. [The creative team] never set out to do a remake. It’s not a jukebox musical; if we just used the movie’s soundtrack — all those songs are great, I listen to that album all the time, but they wouldn’t move the plot forward. We didn’t really do anything that’s like copy-paste; the whole thing is in many ways an original work.

It manages to preserve that scrappy “let’s put on a show together” feeling…

There’s a lot of newbies in the room, and I mean that in a positive way. The Rescues were brand-new to this, and so their music was just a true labor of love — they had no jadedness. Apparently they wrote, like, 50 songs for this thing before we got started! And [book co-writer] Chris Hoch is no stranger to the stage, but [book co-writer] David Hornsby is a TV writer, and so for him coming into the theater world and bringing that sort of TV writing sense did so much for this too. Dean Maupin, our drummer, he’s a model and a musician, and he was like, “I kind of want to get into acting,” and all of a sudden his first thing is this Broadway show! We all feel comfortable in this space, because no one has set up any kind of a thing where people have to feel bad for being new at all. 

You have this really unique voice, and thus far in your career it seems like you’ve had the luck of getting to do these non-traditional musicals — in addition to Tommy, you recently played Orpheus in Hadestown and got to do the new musical We Live in Cairo at New York Theater Workshop, where Rent originated. Before you got to Broadway, did you want a more traditional career — or was it always your aim to do something different?

I’m not unaware of how crazy lucky I am, for, like you said, having done this many cool things in such a short amount of time. I’ve always been drawn to new work, and I also have always written my own music, but I think I did get lucky falling in these rooms that were pushing these boundaries. I also think playing guitar kind of got me in some of these places too. I got to do Hadestown — and in all three of these shows, part of my audition process was being able to play guitar. I’ve always wanted to be a character actor, but that sometimes comes as being a secondary [role], so it’s been nice to play some sort of leading roles where I also get to be a chameleon.

Did elements of playing Orpheus and Tommy prepare you to do David?

With both of those shows, I needed to learn what my voice was, because, like you said, it is a little different. I was hard on myself in college, because I wanted to sound like the people I heard on Broadway who were making it, and that was such a very clean sound, and I always had a bit of a rasp, which now I like because it’s great for rock, but I always had a different timbre and was trying to morph it into something else. [But] the minute I started leaning into it, that’s when I started getting jobs.

Tommy and Orpheus were both huge vocal lifts, so I learned how to work on stamina and how to protect my instrument. In this show I’m singing a lot of rock but also screaming and trying to be scary. I also think it was really nice to play Orpheus before David, because they are so different, but I think what makes David effective is having an Orpheus inside of him, like a Russian doll — like, this sweet little boy who wants to fix the world, but somewhere along the way he got really f—ed up. 

Much has been made of your excellent wig, but I’m equally interested in what it’s like to sing with vampire teeth — I’d imagine it’s a complicated saliva situation? 

The teeth are interesting. It’s actually not that hard at all — they’re like Invisalign, they just click in. It’s a mock of my actual teeth, and then they cut out the back plastic, so I can just have the fangs and sound normal. The saliva thing is an aspect… I’ve been usually okay, but there have been a few times, like right after the first time I wear them, I fly up into the air where I’m singing, and there’s literal drool hanging down. [Laughs]

Movement — the flying of course, but also just how you carry yourself — also feels like a huge aspect of how you’ve built this character…

100%, I wanted to go in and make the vampire of it all not cliché or cheesy. So I thought that it would be effective to really figure out what [David’s] body was like — I think he’s technically over 100 years old, or at least in his late 90s. What would it be like for someone like that to be in the body of a 20-year-old, and when does that wax and wane? A lot of the show, I’m really fast, and I’ll do something kind of athletic, and then there are moments when I think he lets the weight of the world slip in on him, and he kind of remembers everything he’s been through in the past century. The whole rock star thing is a character to him, so that he can disassociate from his truth. I’ve also played with the movement pattern of him being like a snake — this sort of slithery thing. All those little touchstones help me make this a real guy with layers.

Are there particular people who you’re channeling in your portrayal of David too? 

I would say the three main people I’m drawing inspiration from are Tim Curry, David Bowie and Sam Reed, who plays Lestat on the Interview With The Vampire TV show right now. Especially David Bowie in Labyrinth, where it’s a little weird, and you’re like, “What is this guy doing? This is crazy,” but there’s also kind of a connection to gender queerness too.

After seeing you in Tommy, my first thought was actually that you gave me major young Tim Curry vibes! Would you do Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror? 

Tim Curry has always been a huge, huge, huge inspiration for me, 100%. I would love to do that part for sure.
 

Hilary Duff is saying cheers to self love.

Speaking to Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly backstage at her recent Las Vegas concert, the singer — who announced Wednesday (May 27) that Aperol Spritz will sponsor her upcoming Lucky Me Tour — opened up about her current philosophy as she gears up to embark on one of the biggest treks of her career.

“If I were to toast to one thing, it would be toasting to becoming like more of yourself instead of becoming more impressive,” she says poignantly. “We’re in our body, we’re fine with who we are, doing great, we’re proud of ourselves. We’re always reaching for more but not reaching too far where we’re like overextending and exhausted. We’re just happy!”

The Lizzie McGuire alum has a lot to be happy about these days. In addition to kicking off her arena tour in June, the star dropped her first album in a decade, Luck … or Something, in February and reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200.

As part of her team-up with Aperol, the beverage company will curate Aperol Spritz Day Club pre-show experiences at some of the venues Duff will play on tour, as well as local bars and restaurants nearby. The former child star says that her personal ideal setting for sipping on a spritz would be “in New York with a small group of friends, and we’re at a sidewalk cafe and people are just starting to flood the streets because everyone’s getting warm in their bones again … they’ve planted the flowers, everything’s blooming, you can feel the energy in the air.”

She also notes that the Luck … or Something track that most embodies “golden hour Aperol” is “Adult Size Medium,” on which she sings: “Was it a sip of wine or Aperol?/ I remember everything and nothing at all.”

“I think I’m most looking forward to seeing everyone show up for me,” Duff adds to Billboard of the Lucky Me Tour, which follows her run of mini-residency shows in Vegas. “When I think about this era, for me it took a lot of guts. I showed up for sure, but the only reason it’s working is because everyone’s showing up, and I don’t even exactly know why, but I’m really excited to see it and feel it and feel something that I’ve gotten a little taste of now. Obviously it’s in my body from before, but I’m such a different version of myself than I was back then, so it’s really magical to do this again.”

YG has spent plenty of time at gentlemen’s clubs around the globe, and he’s launching his own, in a way. The Compton native announced on Wednesday (May 27) that his seventh studio album will be titled The Gentlemen’s Club.

The “Who Do You Love?” rapper revealed that The Gentlemen’s Club is slated to arrive on June 19. He also posted the LP’s cover art, which finds YG delivering a menacing stare while rocking a suit coat jacket and a black glove, while pointing to his head with his fingers in the shape of a gun.

Fans seemed to be hyped that the 4-Hunnit CEO is returning to heat up the summertime. “Summer finna be lit,” one person wrote in his IG comments. Another added: “Oh yeah big summer happening!”

After spending a majority of his career at Def Jam, YG also signed a new deal, which will find him partnering with 10K Projects for The Gentlemen’s Club. The move marks his first major label deal in nearly five years, according to a press release.

YG has released pair of singles in 2026 already, including “TEACH YUH HOW TO LOVE ME” featuring frequent collaborator Ty Dolla $ign and “State of Emergency.”

The 36-year-old’s last project arrived in 2024 with his JUST RE’D UP 3 mixtape. The double-disc project featured Lil Yachty, G Herbo, Mozzy, Babyface Ray, Tee Grizzley, Ty Dolla $ign, Saweetie and Mustard.

As for his most recent studio album, YG released I Got Issues in 2022, which debuted at No. 18 on the Billboard 200.

Find YG’s cover art for The Gentlemen’s Club below.

Martina McBride, Flo Rida and more artists are coming together this summer to help the United States of America celebrate its 250th birthday.

As announced by Freedom 250 on Wednesday (May 27), the nonpartisan organization’s upcoming 16-day Great American State Fair will feature a slate of performers that includes Young MC, C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, The Commodores, Morris Day & The Time and Bret Michaels in addition to McBride and Flo. Taking place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the patriotic event will kick off June 25 and last through July 10.

“The celebration will unite and showcase all 56 U.S. states and territories in a single World’s Fair-scale event,” reads a description on the Freedom 250 website. “This is an opportunity for visitors from across America to experience an unforgettable celebration of the people and traditions that define our nation.”

Also featuring carnival rides and stations showcasing the cultures of all 56 American states and territories, the festival will mark the finale of President Donald Trump’s year-long Great American State Fair, which also involves activations in state fairs across the country. The twice-impeached president first previewed plans for the celebrations in July last year, with the White House promising at the time that the administration would “throw the greatest birthday party in American history.”

The government’s 250th-anniversary plans also include the Patriot Games, an athletic competition in which high school students from all 50 states will take part.

Registration for the Great American State Fair in D.C. is free online.

See the lineup announcement for the festival below.

Kylie Minogue let fans into her private life in the recent three-part Netflix documentary Kylie. Now the Australian pop superstar is pulling back the curtain even further with the concert special Kylie. Tension Tour Live.

The two-hour and two-minute Netflix special that went live on Wednesday (May 27) chronicles the singer’s 66-show 2025 tour in support of her sixteenth studio album, Tension, which included runs through some the star’s most beloved hits, including “What Do I Have to Do,” “Spinning Around,” “The Loco-Motion,” “Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life,” “Padam Padam,” “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and the Tension title track, among others.

“When I stepped off the stage on the closing night of the Tension tour, I could hardly believe what had transpired over the previous eight months,” Minogue says in voice-over at the top of the live film over footage of her running off the vividly colored stage amid an eruption of cheers from the ecstatic crowd.

The screen then fills with a quick-cut montage of onstage scenes from those previous eight months, with Minogue adding, “The Tension tour was everything I’d hoped it would be. I was so grateful for all the love from all around the world, and it was absolutely a chance to finally break the tension together. My dream was to get amongst the audience, to really connect and coexist. And that’s what happened. In such an emotional way, and I just feel more present in … everything.”

The action kicks off in Minogue native Australia at the tour’s dance rehearsals, with glimpses of the gigs kicking off in Perth and running through the final Aug 26 show in Monterrey, Mexico. Early on, we see Minogue getting final touch-ups before taking the stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a show she says in voice-over was one of her favorite on the tour.

We then see the tension (sorry) build as lasers fill the air, fans begin losing it and Minogue, dressed in a blue leather outfit, is hoisted above the stage on a giant swing, emerging in a giant projected laser diamond singing “Lights Camera Action” as she is slowly lowered to the main stage, where she is greeted by a troupe of dancers in futuristic silver helmets.

The film bounces around from city-to-city and country to country, and, after touching down in Asia, Minogue says over footage of fans freaking out, “The feeling of unity was just unbelievable. Every night, every venue, there’s so much shared, collective experience with my audience. And now we’ve got the chance to make all these new memories together.”

It also, of course, chronicles the many colorful outfits Minogue busted out during the show, from a sparkly red leather jumpsuit, to a purple leather dress and leggings look, a short silver minidress, a shimmering silver top with dangling red and green fringe, a strappy black dress with carefully placed cut-outs and many more. “Yeah, we like to change things up,” Minogue says over the montage of looks as she does vocal warm-ups in the wings with her backup singers.

The tour, which supported both 2023’s Tension and its 2024 sequel, Tension II, stretched from March through September of last year and the doc comes a week after the release of the Kylie doc, which takes viewers through the singer’s 40-plus year career, including a previously undisclosed second cancer diagnosis in 2021 after Minogue received treatment for breast cancer in 2005.

Forget walking when you can FLY. Starship Entertainment’s new boyband IDID returns with their Single Album [FLY!], a two-track release that pairs the lead track “FLY!” with the B-side “Attent!on.”

Dropping Wednesday, May 27, the pop drop “signals a new chapter defined by clarity, chemistry, and effortless confidence,” reads a statement. The overall mood of the two tunes is characterized as “after-school energy,” a bubbling sound loaded up on “unfiltered, spontaneous, and rooted in togetherness.”

Rather than “presenting a highly manufactured image,” the presser continues, “the release foregrounds natural expressions and genuine interaction. Each member’s individuality shines more clearly, coming together to form a cohesive and dynamic team presence defined by positivity, playfulness, and connection.”

The seven-strong group was formed through the survival show Debut’s Plan, which premiered in March 2025. IDID made their official debut later that year, in September 2025, with the EP [I did it], a title that represents their full name (and is said to embody their “unshakable resolve and a drive to turn ambition into achievement”).

Comprising Jang Yonghoon, Kim Minjae, Park Wonbin, Chu Yoochan, Park Seonghyeon, Baek Junhyuk and Jeong Semin, IDID is Starship’s first new boy group in about five years, joining a roster of global K-pop artists that includes MONSTA X, WJSN (Cosmic Girls), CRAVITY, IVE and KiiiKiii.

The Single Album [FLY!] is the followup to “[PUSH BACK],” and it’s been enjoying a big tease in recent weeks with the release of the “Diary” trailer. In it, the lads hang out in the city, and get up to some good, clean fun.

“The group continues moving forward,” reads a message from Starship, “not with force, but with clarity and ease; refining their identity through shared chemistry and lived-in energy.”

Check out the trailer here and stream The Single Album [FLY!] below.

When Mallrat returned with 2025’s Light Hit My Face Like A Straight Right, the project wasn’t so much a reinvention, but a creative revelation.

With Light Hit My Face (released via Nettwerk in North America, and via Dew Process / Universal Music Australia in Australasia), the Brisbane-raised, Melbourne-based artist built a new world, a universe. It’s a collection that staddles both the future and nostalgia, built with bricks that are both organic and electric.

On it, Mallrat (real name: Grace Shaw) showcases her vocals, which at times take an otherworldly turn with the help of AutoTune; her maturing songwriting; and features an array of collaborations, including contributions from Cub Sport’s Tim Nelson, Australian producer Styalz Fuego, and U.S. producer Buddy Ross. Shaw’s production on Light Hit My Face earned her producer of the year plaudits at the 2026 Queensland Music Awards, a badge she’s particularly proud to wear. Mallrat was also nominated for album of the year at the QMAs, and best solo artist and best pop release at the 2025 ARIA Awards.

“This was the first time that I was super-intentional with the world building with all of the visuals for the album, especially,” Shaw tells Billboard. “The worlds that I was building was a parallel universe, a southeast Queensland, where magic appears through strange little portals.” The album’s artwork features Shaw climbing on board a Hills Hoist clothesline, an Australian icon that’s right up there with Vegemite, koalas and the Lamington. In Mallrat’s world, it’s no ordinary Hills Hoist. This is a portal. “I imagined it as a conductor of magic,” she says with a laugh.

Mallrat presented some of that magic on opening night of Vivid Sydney 2026, with a set at Tumbalong Nights on Darling Harbour last Friday, May 22, where she fronted a three-piece lineup, which included a live drummer and a keyboardist who would switch it up with a guitar for the right number. “Hi Sydney, how’s everyone feeling tonight. I’m so happy you’re here,” Mallrat, wearing a white shirt and matching cans, told the audience after opening with album cuts “My Darling, My Angel” and “Pavement.”

It’s a more robust lineup to Mallrat’s arena tour of Australia earlier this year in support of Kylie Minogue, when she performed alongside a DJ.

Mallrat emerged as a fully-formed indie-pop artist in 2016 with the first of several EPs, Uninvited. Career streams across her catalogue, which include the timelessly charming “Groceries” and the cuter than a bug’s ear “Charlie,” which she performed for Vivid Sydney, are north of 500 million, reps say.

American audiences will get to enter Mallrat’s world later this year. U.S. and Canada live dates get underway June 13 at Seaport District NYC, and include a tour in support of Swedish artist Tove Lo. Those Tove Lo Estrus dates wrap up Oct. 1 in Mexico City, Shaw’s first visit to Mexico’s capital. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” she enthuses. “I’m so excited about that.” It’s her second visit to North America in just 12 months, following Mallrat’s opening spot of MARINA’s run last September and October.

Mallrat’s universe is expanding. The goal, she tells Billboard, is “making more albums. I’m working on maybe what could be two albums, or maybe it’ll just be one. As well as alongside my own music, tinkering away at writing and producing with other artists that I find really exciting. I’ll just have to cross my fingers that all that stuff comes out.”

It’s a too early to lock in the style and sound of Mallrat’s next project. “But I have been playing with a more electronic sample-based direction,” she explains, “and then I’ve been playing with a more live indie direction and then I’ve also been like experimenting with some kind of indie folk stuff. So, what I need to figure out now is where to concentrate my energy. Because it’s all fun.”

Tumbalong Nights is part of Vivid Sydney 2026, which runs to June 13. Vivid Sydney is presented by Destination NSW.

It’s been a long time since Jeff Mills worked his techno wizardry on Sydney audiences. Almost 25 years. Almost a lifetime. He broke that spell Friday night, May 22, with a marathon masterclass at Sydney Opera House, an Australian exclusive performance celebrating his iconic Liquid Room Mix.

Mills is an architect of Detroit techno, a founding member of the Underground Resistance. He’s known fondly as The Wizard for concocting magic at the decks, a world-class vinyl technician who thinks multiple stages ahead of the next drop, pulling at dizzying speed from his crate anonymous, white label cuts that would have the rest of us cooked.

Getting down to business in the Studio, a nightclub proper hidden underneath those famous sails, Mills got his Vivid LIVE opening night performance away with a history lesson, a 30-minute documentary on his legendary three-hour set at Tokyo nightclub Liquidroom. Recorded in 1995 at Tokyo nightclub Liquidroom, it’s a moment that’s spoken of in hushed tones. The live benchmark in progressive techno.

All told, Mills mixed more than 200 records on the night. Mills, the producer, worked many of his own tunes into that set for the first time, fresh from the studio to the wheels of steel. They were “so cutting edge,” he explains in the doc, and “reflective of what was happening deep in the underground of Europe and America.”

Many were masters and white labels, and they’d go on to become well known wherever techno is played. Some were pressed on 14” copper acetate, a format that was expensive, hard to find, and which, he says in the film, played at twice the volume as wax. The detonations can be easily spotted on those YouTube streams. “I knew I wanted to make the audience scream,” he recounts of his motivation. “So I knew I had to do something that exploded.”

“The Bells” was one. Perhaps his signature track, Mills made the track on one afternoon. “It took me a few hours,” he admits. After all these years, “The Bells” is still ringing, as it did on opening night in Sydney.

Mills last visited Australia in 2024 with his “Tomorrow Comes The Harvest” jazz-electronic project, a collaboration with Jean-Phi Dary and Prabhu Edouard. And before that in 2016, for a project with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and fellow Detroit scene-builder Derrick May. On a drizzling night at the SOH, Mills got to work with vinyl, an appropriately austere scaffolding as his backdrop. No pre-programmed bits, no cheating, just lights, lasers, and a tireless smoke machine.

“DJing at a higher level than just mixing records together is quite complex,” he recently told Billboard’s Katie Bain. “It’s like being an athlete, like a tennis player. You have so many things you need to think about at the same time, as time is moving forward. You literally have to split your mind into multiple parts, and you have to pay attention to each one of these things at the same time, so your peripheral sense becomes enhanced.”

Although released by Sony Music on CD and cassette at the time (but not on DVD, against his wishes), the Liquid Room Mix has never been officially available digitally until now. It’d be considered a myth, if the set hadn’t been recorded for posterity.

Mills completed a two-night stand for Vivid LIVE on Saturday, May 23. Vivid LIVE is the annual contemporary music centerpiece of the Sydney Opera House, and part of the broader Vivid Sydney festival, which runs through June 13, and is owned, managed and produced by the New South Wales government, Destination NSW and Feel New Sydney.

Read Billboard’s “20 Questions” with Jeff Mills here.