Skrillex Pauses Festival Set After Literally Setting The Stage On Fire

Skrillex (aka Sonny Moore) was forced to pause his set at this year’s Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona last Friday (June 2), after a “technical error” caused the stage to briefly catch fire.

Moore had only been on stage for a few minutes when the blaze occurred – according to setlist.fm, it happened during his playthrough of Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites, three songs into the set. He was only taken out of commission for a few moments, though, as staff reportedly took around 10 minutes to put the fire out. 

As noted by Pitchfork, representatives of Primavera Sound said the fire was caused by one of the giant lights used during the performance – footage shared online (which you can see below) showed an elevated truss on fire – and was put out by crew members using a handheld fire extinguisher; no injuries were reported.

lol at skrillex setting the stage on fire pic.twitter.com/R2vdNilBKv

— ally pally (@allypallyxcx) June 3, 2023

Moore went on to perform for the remainder of his billed set time at Primavera Sound, ironically playing almost every song from his recent second album Quest For Fire. That record arrived back in February, being released in tandem with Moore’s third album as Skrillex, Don’t Get Too Close. He’s since been on a festival hot-streak, recently filling in for Frank Ocean (alongside Four Tet and Fred Again) during the second weekend of Coachella 2023. 

He’ll make it to Australia this September – performing here for the first time since 2018 – when he plays this year’s Listen Out festival alongside the likes of Ice Spice, JPEGMafia, Kenny Beats, Lil Uzi Vert, Malltat and Young Franco. 

Last month, Moore finally reconnected with Rachael Nedrow, better known as the girl he famously sampled on Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites. The pair linked up at Moore’s monumental Skrillex show at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado back in April, from which Nedrow wrote in her Instagram caption: “Wow. What an incredible evening. An electrifying 5-hour set at Red Rocks then reuniting on my 28th birthday after 12 years. Just two human beings, connected through a moment of pure joy, spreading moments of 'OH MY GOSH' euphoria across the globe millions of times over. I'm just mind blown.”