“Don’t give in to nostalgia.”

Spoken by the blind old man, Alfredo, in the magical film Cinema Paradiso, this advice is something I’ve probably taken a little too literally at times—maybe even out of context. I am constantly self-aware of not getting lost in the past. It is within our power to recall and learn from history, of course, but living in the present is crucial.

Yet, I gave in.

One of the greatest podcasts I’ve ever discovered is to blame, and I have a simple response for its creator, Cole Cuchna: Thank you.

We’ve all heard about the power of music on the mind—in particular, how an older person hearing a song they haven’t heard since their twenties can immediately snap back to the past and begin to dance. What I’m experiencing is related to that part of my own mind, but this feels different. It feels like a newer technology, an elaborate and more effective way to dive into the memory banks.

Dissect, Cole’s podcast, is deconstructing my mind and my memories, reopening neural pathways that haven’t been stimulated in years. Visions are suddenly blooming from the middle of my cortex, my amygdala, and other parts of my cranium I don’t fully understand.

This season, he is dissecting Daft Punk’s music.

I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard “Around the World.” I was in my bedroom, just to the right of the glass terrarium housing my pet leopard gecko and my fire-bellied toad. I was blasting the radio on my speaker setup, tape over the write-protect notches of a cassette, waiting for the song to air so I could record it. That led to burning it on a loop.

1998 was an absolutely gorgeous time to be alive: Space Jam, Small Soldiers, riding bikes, catching garter snakes daily, talking to girls on walkie-talkies, and setting up tents in the backyard. We’d run an extension cord from the house into a TV-VHS combo to secretly watch Jaws 3-D and Congo—violent, R-rated movies that only the devil himself could have created to seep into our collective soul-consciousness. I was raised in a strict Mormon/Latter-day Saint home, so that last sentence is slightly sarcastic. I remember listening to Z100, the local Portland top-hits station, and fantasizing about winning one of those 100th-caller contests. I never did.

The Journey to 1 A.D.

Fast-forward to the main point of emphasis. The year is 2007. We had just graduated from high school, and I had purchased an $80 Daft Punk ticket. Eight of the homies piled into my buddy’s blue, wood-paneled van and began our journey up to Seattle. It was a short, three-hour drive from Portland, including a pitstop at a forest to get stoned. There, with my own eyes, I witnessed a whimsical band of LARPers frolicking through the trees, living their absolute best lives. For the rest of the drive, we listened to Benny Benassi’s Cooking for Pump-kin (Special Menu) in its entirety.

We checked into our hotel, which was literally next door to the WaMu Theater. We dropped off our clothes and traded pulls from whatever bottles of alcohol we had. If I had to guess, it was a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 or maybe Olde English. It was a bit out of character for me, but I remember being acutely aware that I didn’t want to get too hammered. I needed to remember this entire journey. I had never heard of Daft Punk touring in the States, and it could be a while until they toured again.

Expecting security to be extremely tight, we picked up some scotch tape and began hiding ecstasy tablets in the crevices of our ball and leg area. This was back when you could purchase homemade drugs without the terrifying fear of fentanyl. Ahhh, the good ol’ days. I hoped they were in a spot the guards wouldn’t check. I briefly contemplated taping them to my nipples, but that felt way too obvious. My goal was to pop them right as the show began. Nothing was going to stop me. Nothing did.

We snapped a photo in front of the concert venue before checking into the hotel.

This photo is hitting so hard right now. Photography credits go to Bryce Wasiak, who regrettably isn’t in this shot, though I believe there is another photo without me where Bryce takes my place. We must have traded spots. The homie. Another old friend is missing from the frame too; I'm not sure why we split up.

The fact that SebastiAn and Kavinsky were on the opening bill was insane at the time. I couldn’t wait to see them. The only artists within that French electronic circle I would have wanted to see more were DJ Falcon and Mr. Oizo. This was going to be epic.

Walking through the front doors was surreal. They had zero security check! Still, it didn’t hurt to be overly cautious when carrying MDMA across state lines in the mid-2000s. In hindsight, that absolutely could have earned me jail time. I immediately went to the bathroom to detach my party drugs, shoved them into my pants pocket, and proceeded to the dance floor.

It wasn’t packed yet. My buddies decided to turn around to buy some merch. I had no money—that’s all I remember—but I think I put it on my credit card or a friend spotted me: a black Daft Punk Alive 2007 tour shirt. They had an electric blue version with the Alive 2007 logo, and a hot pink design with the pyramid logo on the front. I went blue-on-black. I threw it on over my new favorite striped polo, immediately regretting the layers. It was going to be a sweaty night.

As we waited in front of an empty stage with the curtains down, the house music began playing. I heard tracks by DJ Falcon, SebastiAn, and Kavinsky, and I started wondering: Are they going to come out? Will they play what we’re hearing… but live? Will they have scratchboards or turntables? What is happening? Are they playing this from behind the curtains?

I grew impatient, even though I loved the tracks. The tension was building.

I got separated from my buddies for a bit as the entire crowd just stood there, waiting for the lights to dim or the curtains to open. We just waited. I stood next to a guy I didn’t know; we both just accepted standing close to one another and bobbed our heads. We didn’t look at each other; we just knew exactly why we were both there. Daft Punk.

Then my friends showed back up, all sporting their own merch. Holy shit. This was unreal.

What happened next is what I have been reliving while listening to the breakdown of this era of their music catalog.

It might help to share the episode here. Maybe listen to it and come back, or just put on Alive 2007 **as you read.

DISSECT x “Human After All” & “Alive 2007” by Daft Punk

The blue-backlit curtains turned to black. I was right at the front on the left side, and I watched the dark, massive silhouette of the pyramid come into view. I remember popping those chalky, acidic, Louis Vuitton-stamped drugs into my mouth as the melting began.

The Robots stepped up to the control panel at the apex. I was actually seeing Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo with my own eyes. Full suits. The lights were reflecting off their iconic chrome helmets, and I was floating. Dropped straight from Paris into Seattle, Washington—nowhere else on the planet mattered except where I was standing. I could hardly believe it.

“HUMAN.” “ROBOT.”

The lyrics were displayed on a separate layer on the backdrop LEDs in giant, bold lettering. Faster and faster. The vocal chops were intense, with lights flashing to the beat, accelerating wildly.

BOOM. The pyramid lit up.

The show was a complete knockout. “Touch It / Technologic” was a total curveball, with the vocals being chopped up from that creepy robot in the music video, but altered slightly from “Techno-logic” to the words on the backdrop screen in big, bold letters: “FUCK IT. FUCK IT. FUCK IT.” What was happening?!

Personally, I had never seen LED panels of that scale before—I sold big-screen televisions at Circuit City, so I noticed those things. I had never heard their album Human After All weaponized within this kind of live formula. It’s important to remember that nobody had ever heard Daft Punk remix their own music!

I had never had so much fun at a show.

There was someone in the crowd fist-pumping with one of their crutches. If I needed crutches, I still would have gone too.

Then “Steam Machine” started, and the bass-line for “Around the World” faded in. It was another fever-pitch moment for the crowd. It’s unbelievable how well it all sounded together for the first time ever. These are memories I haven’t been able to recall… until now.

I made my way through the crowd, face-to-face with the pyramid, just as “Face to Face / Short Circuit” began to play. The images flashing across the structure were out of this world—distorted faces and glitching eyes. It was the single most psychedelic moment I have ever lived. I stared into it as I descended into a techno abyss.

There were moments of genuine fear sprinkled into the experience, too. Those tablets I ingested were in full force. It was terrifying as the drawn-out, robotic vocals rained down into my soul. Snap out of it… we’re dancing!

When the beat hit at the 1:38 mark of the track, it sent an already sweat-soaked crowd into an absolute frenzy. I was caught in the middle of an aboriginal synergy, a swarming mass of dance-floor bodies. I was squished so tight, shoulder-to-shoulder with as many people as you could possibly feel at one moment. I couldn’t breathe, and I was able to lift my feet completely off the ground, finding myself swaying entirely with the momentum of the crowd, supported by the squeeze on my shoulders. Literally floating, with a massive smile on my face.

I’ve been known to crowd surf, and I did so at some great concerts growing up—including senior prom night. I remember doing it at a Tech N9ne show, maybe an Andre Nickatina show as well. I accidentally kicked someone in the head at a Bloody Beetroots concert at the Roseland Theater in Portland once. I still feel bad about that… sorry to whoever that was! I just ran off and disappeared into the crowd.

But Daft Punk’s stage deserved so much more respect than that. It wasn’t even possible anyway, as it was fenced off and the pyramid was massive, but the thought crossed my mind.

Then “One More Time” began. That sustained, repeating loop of the opening horn sample echoed out. Everyone was absolutely losing their minds. I was deep within the space of the Daft Punk Universe.

The show had opened with tracks from their most recent album, Human After All. At the time, it was highly controversial. In the artist timeline, that record was styled in the vein of an ’80s punk/metal counterculture record. It was angry, anti-establishment, and deeply pessimistic about the system and how humanity is overtaken by technology. I loved it. I have a great memory of all of us deciding back then that if the world ever did end, we would just blast “Make Love”—one of the most beautiful tracks in their entire discography—for our final living moments. In fact, if somehow everyone on Earth could hear it simultaneously… even better.

I worked my way around the venue, eventually heading to the back where I could cool down, watch, and head-bob. Everyone was feral. Nobody stopped dancing. By the end of the set, the room was completely toasted. Everyone was exhausted, there was nobody left standing, and they didn’t even sell food!

As the set neared its end after an hour or so, I could feel the finale approaching. We had heard pieces of every song—except “Digital Love,” which I kept assuming would pop up. To this day, I have never heard them remix that song, and it’s nowhere to be found.

At the end of the regular set, the crowd roared. The Robots waved goodbye, bowed to the audience, and walked off the stage. I was disappointed initially; it felt too soon, and I was ready for more. But the crowd went ballistic. It wasn’t anger; it was an overwhelming wave of gratitude for what we had just been gifted. We chanted and screamed for what felt like ten minutes. It was a hilarious, honest, and deeply gratifying expression of thankfulness, a collective shout into the void in hopes they could hear us backstage: “DAFT PUNK! DAFT PUNK!” over and over.

Then, our souls left our bodies.

They came back. They were seen walking back up the pyramid.

The stage lights were still completely dark from the close of the main show.

“HUUUUUMAN.”

They were back again! Were they just going to play the same set twice?

Suddenly, a demonic, deep, rumbling bass consumed the entire room. The buildup was otherworldly. The hook from “Together” by DJ Falcon & Bangalter began to loop, building and building as our bloodshot eyeballs strained for more. Then, we saw the backlit display strike two glowing red lines, tracking the outlines of the geometric light panels on the sides of the stage. They followed the triangle patterns like Pac-Man navigating the edges, racing lower and lower, eventually reaching the bottom before slowly crawling up into the LED screens of the pyramid itself.

The beat dropped, and the Daft Punk Robots were entirely lit up in neon red. The display did something it hadn’t done for the entirety of the regular show: suddenly, bright red star fields erupted across every screen on the stage.

We were in deep space.

I think I died. Simultaneously, a part of me was reborn. That encore was the single most magical music memory I possess, yet I had forgotten most of it over the years. This podcast helped me remember.

The Legacy of the Pyramid

Now, I’m sitting here listening to it all over again. How? After over twenty years of loving this artist, how can I become completely obsessed all over again? I still listen to it regularly! Have I given into nostalgia? Or is this simply the greatest music of my lifetime?

This wasn’t just a concert; it was a watershed moment in music history. I feel an intense gravity of gratitude for having witnessed it. Years later, I learned that this specific tour was what a young Skrillex witnessed, inspiring him to drop everything and begin producing electronic music. The electronic dance music explosion of the 2010s was largely detonated by this exact pyramid.

To this day, this event—the journey to the show, the memories we created together—holds a sacred place in my heart. There is an underrated confidence that comes with having your music taste validated like that. When your favorite artist transcends what you thought they were capable of, blows up in global popularity, and creates literal tectonic shifts in music history, you show up live and they still outperform your wild expectations. There was no letdown.

My buddy Sam (pictured in the photo wearing the turquoise De La Soul T-shirt) and I consider true time as starting at this concert. Every year on July 29th, I text him: “The year is 1 A.D.” (After Daft). And that’s exactly how it felt.

As time goes by, nothing has surpassed that night. I’ve seen some incredible shows since. My wife and I saw Justice a few years ago, and it was awesome to see them still absolutely killing it. Shout out to The Naked and Famous, Glass Candy, and Chromatics, who all put on amazing performances. But nothing compares to the era in which this happened. There was secrecy back then. You could look at the crowd and notice that hardly anyone was filming on a phone. Luckily, someone on YouTube did film the entire show we went to that night, standing within five feet of where I stood. For myself, it’s sort of freaky watching it. You can watch it right here.

As soon as the live album came out on vinyl, I bought it. It’s not really formatted for a traditional record pressing—it’s a live recording and halfway through, to flip to Side B, it hard-cuts—but listening to it for the first time was pure magic. I was right back there.

Then, one of the most mind-blowing things ever happened. I opened the bonus booklet that came with the vinyl and flipped through the tour photos inside. I looked down, and I saw this:

Those curtains. I realized right then… those two dudes waiting next to each other?

That’s me on the left! There’s my newly purchased Daft Punk shirt over my blue polo shirt (which I think I eventually ditched that night to cool off). That’s my hair! Daft Punk controls every single pixel that goes into their product. They legitimately looked at and approved a picture of me? It sounds strange, but it makes me incredibly happy.

Even crazier, I saw the photo credit belonged to DJ Falcon. That means he was just discreetly walking around the floor taking photos before the show! I cannot believe this.

Shout out to that random dude standing next to me, whoever you were. We are a permanent, extremely small part of Daft Punk’s physical imprint on this world.

I’m still not entirely sure what happened with The Rapture, SebastiAn, and Kavinsky openers that night. I assume they opened on other tour dates, but that evening was reserved entirely for the ones we paid to see. Honestly, I’m glad. The butterfly effect might have meant we wouldn’t have had enough energy left for the main event. Maybe we would have been too fatigued for the encore? Maybe I would have actually died?

To this day, I still have that shirt. The armpits are totally ripped out, the blue and black have faded, but it remains one of the most important pieces of clothing I have ever owned. I get a wave of pride whenever I look at the back and see our tour date printed there. I love skateboarding in it. It gives me confidence. Nobody else has this shirt. Plus, the ventilation in the armpits is highly underrated.

From the Pyramid to the Grammys

If this seems like a humble brag… yeah, it is. It was a monument in music history, and I’m proud to have been a witness.

From this point in time, the Robots went on an unbelievable run. They scored Disney’s TRON: Legacy, even making a cameo in the film in the End of Line Club. Then came Random Access Memories in 2013, an album that threw away digital sampling in favor of live, analog instrumentation, proving they could master the past just as easily as they invented the future.

It all culminated at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Watching them sweep the night—winning Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Get Lucky”—felt like a victory lap for our entire generation of music fans, especially for me since I had never cared about the Grammy Awards, EVER. When they took the stage to accept their awards alongside Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, dressed in those fresh, white stormtrooper suits and matching white helmets, they stayed perfectly in character. They didn’t speak a word, letting their collaborators do the talking, but you could tell through their visor glass exactly how much it meant to them. They had completely conquered the mainstream music industry on their own terms, without ever showing their faces.

Daft Punk has since stopped producing music. Guy-Manuel and Thomas Bangalter are doing their own things now. Bangalter has stayed busy collaborating, scoring films, and composing brilliant, sweeping classical music for ballet.

Guy-Manuel is hopefully working away in a studio somewhere. I personally pray that one day he reissues all of his Le Knight Club records and the tracks from his Crydamoure side-label project. Those are some of the greatest French house tracks ever pressed. When they do drop, I’ll be the first in line to purchase them.

I’ve recently reached out to the crew who shared that Alive 2007 journey with me. Life moves on and people drift—some are hard to track down these days—but from those I reached, the overwhelming sentiment always distills into a single word: gratitude. We got to experience a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime lightning strike where pure musical genius intersected perfectly with the peak of our youth. The Robots would never return to this specific brand of raw, nihilistic electronic house; instead, they chose to gracefully evolve, continuously reinventing and reimagining what music could be. I joked earlier about dying and being reborn under that neon red pyramid, but looking back at that photo of us in front of the venue, I realize a part of me really did.

It’s rare. I look back at that time and realize our expectations weren’t just met—they were completely shattered. I feel an immense gravity of gratitude for the genius of Daft Punk, but even more for the people who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me in that techno abyss. The Robots have stepped away from the stage, and my faded tour shirt is fraying at the seams, but the bond we forged in that sweat-soaked crowd is permanent.

Nineteen years later, the year is 19 A.D., and we are still floating.

Renn Jensen