Highs and Lows of Estéreo Picnic 2025 [2]
🎪From Rain-Soaked Fields to Moments of Transcendence. Part 2 of 2
This is Part 2 of our Estéreo Picnic 2025 chronicle. You can read Part 1 by clicking here.
Despite heavy rain throughout the day, and some general reluctance, I ended up making it to Parque Simón Bolívar around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday the 30th, which was Day 4 of the festival.
I was just in time for Empire of the Sun. The Australian synth-pop duo put on a visually striking show, no doubt. Musically, though? It didn’t blow me away. The sound felt off—overblown, maybe poorly calibrated. I heard they came straight from Australia, not on a formal Latin American tour, perhaps just for the Picnic and a couple other gigs. So maybe that had something to do with it. Still, they delivered.
I filmed a nice video of “We Are The People”. That moment hit hard. As it happened with Foster the People on Day 1, I felt old at times. I genuinely thought their biggest track was “Walking on a Dream”, and assumed people would get hyped for that one and other hits like “Standing on the Shore” —the opener from their debut album, which I personally love. But no one knew it. The crowd didn’t even move much. The only moment the masses lit up was the track “Alive”, which to me marked the band’s creative downfall. Oh well.
Right before that, Chilean-Mexican singer-songwriter Mon Laferte was wrapping up. I didn’t manage to catch her set—only heard the last couple of songs from outside the venue as I walked in. I’d actually been watching her pre-show interview on the livestream at home before deciding to leave. It’s a shame I missed it; I saw her once before at the first edition of Festival Cordillera and was really hoping to see how her live show has evolved, especially after hearing KEXP host Albina Cabrera speak about her at BOmm. Mon’s career walks that tightrope between alternative and mainstream—always interesting, always risky. If you caught her set, let us know what you thought.
Next up was Olivia Rodrigo. I’ll be honest—it didn’t do much for me. She’s a great songwriter, sure. The songs “drivers license” and “deja vu” are masterpieces and they still hit. I caught a bit of her set, filmed “drivers license”, but the rest didn’t really resonate. I thought she might’ve surprised me like Billie Eilish did a few years ago—an artist I didn’t care about until I saw her live and walked away a full-blown fan. Olivia, though? She’s got the talent, the voice, the piano skills... but it all felt a little too polished, too average.
That said, her band and particularly lead guitarist Arianna Powell was unbelievable—shredding like John Petrucci from Dream Theater. Probably the highlight of that set.
And then came Ela Minus.
Now that was something else. A glitchy, experimental pop-electronic performance that felt like a revelation. Gabriela Jimeno (aka Ela) owned the Presente stage. A total standout, both musically and in how she connected with the audience. At one point, her gear just shut down mid-song. No idea why. But she handled it like a pro, reset everything, and kept the energy going without missing a beat.
She introduced the closing track as a “reimagining of the Colombian national anthem”, and it was absolutely stunning. A beautiful, intimate moment. Easily one of my top 5 shows of the entire weekend.
But hey, it wasn’t all sunshine. Rüfüs Du Sol? One of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. At first I thought it would be a DJ act—like Tiësto or Zedd—but no. It’s three guys doing… something. A soulless mix of the worst versions of U2 and Coldplay, with a splash of indie-electro sadness. Utterly forgettable. I can’t recall a single song and still don’t understand how they were closing one of the main stages. Unfortunately I had to watch it, given that JPEGMAFIA canceled last minute. That cancellation really stung. He was one of the artists I was most excited about. Still no word on why he dropped out.
Anyway, I also had to endure Rüfüs because I was waiting for Caribou, and Thank God I did. What a way to close out the weekend. Caribou turned the place into a swirling, kaleidoscopic dance floor. Minimalist visuals. Maximal joy. The drummer is a genius. The project’s mastermind, Dan Snaith, a mathematics PhD-holding wizard who fuses house and live band dynamics into something totally original. Always colorful, always groovy. You could feel the love coming from the stage.
Their setlist was a ride through the full spectrum of the project’s sound. From classics like “Odessa” and “Sun” to fresh cuts off the new Honey album—including the radiant “Climbing”, which we just featured in one of our latest New Music Vaults—it was a perfectly balanced mix. Hearing tracks like “Never Come Back” from Suddenly (2020) also hit different. That album dropped right before the pandemic, so catching it live for the first time, five years later, felt oddly grounding.
Dan even shouted out Ela Minus during the set. And I later heard that Ela played a secret post-show DJ set at the Coke Studio—basically a branded after-party space, which still seemed was a special moment to close out the event.
So that’s it, folks. Estéreo Picnic 2025 is in the books. A year marked by challenges—torrential rain, the ever-growing marketization of live music, and at times, a crowd more focused on content than connection. Yet, even in the midst of these shifting tides, the festival reaffirmed why it remains one of the most thoughtfully curated and best-organized events in the region.
If there was one place where the heart of the Picnic truly beat this year, it was the Presente stage. Unbranded, unfiltered, and unapologetically experimental, it offered a space where music felt alive again—urgent, intimate, and grounded. From CLUBZ and Hermanos Gutiérrez to the luminous sets by Ela Minus and Caribou, this wasn’t just a stage; it was a statement. A glimpse into the future of the festival—one where artistic risk, cultural depth, and human connection take center stage.
The Picnic continues to evolve. And with spaces like this one leading the way, its essence feels more intact and more inspiring than ever.
Stay tuned for the upcoming New Music Vault, dropping April 8th. And if you prefer to listen, I’ll also be uploading this whole diary originally recorded in Spanish as a podcast on Mixcloud in the coming weeks, along with a curated mixtape. And, there’s more cooking—content experiments, event coverage and collaboration opportunities secured at FEP, which we’ll be unveiling in the coming months.
For now—thanks for sticking with me through this journey. Talk soon!