Paul van Dyk is bringing something new to Dreamstate SoCal 2026. The trance veteran will debut a fresh live concept called The Essence of Acid at the festival’s Queen Mary Waterfront grounds in Long Beach on Saturday, November 21, marking the show’s first performance anywhere in the world and the launch of a full tour to follow.
This isn’t your standard DJ set. The Essence of Acid is built around a live electronic setup, with van Dyk performing directly alongside the hardware shaping the sound in real time. The show blends unreleased material, acid-leaning compositions, live reworks of tracks from his catalogue, and familiar records rebuilt specifically for this format.
The visual side of the production is getting the same treatment. Van Dyk will perform using Roland’s Boutique Series — compact recreations of the TB-303, TR-808 and TR-909 — while the stage design leans into imagery pulled from circuitry, oscilloscopes and waveforms. Lighting, screens and lasers are all built to move in sync with the music rather than run on a separate track, so the whole thing evolves as the set progresses.
Dreamstate, Insomniac’s trance-focused brand and festival vertical, is a fitting launchpad for a project centered on acid’s role in electronic music history. The festival has built its identity around tracing where trance came from and where it’s headed next, and The Essence of Acid leans directly into that mission by pulling the TB-303’s signature squelch into a live context alongside synths, drum machines, sequencers and effects.
Van Dyk’s relationship with Dreamstate goes back to the beginning. He played the very first Dreamstate SoCal in 2015, so this return with a debut concept feels less like a random booking and more like a full-circle moment. Acid isn’t new territory for him either — his back catalogue includes ‘Acid’ with Chicago house pioneer DJ Pierre, ‘ACID TRAXXX’, and the solo cut ‘Filthy Acid’. The Essence of Acid essentially takes that thread of his discography and turns it into a standalone live show built from the ground up.
Dreamstate SoCal 2026 runs Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21 at the Queen Mary Waterfront in Long Beach. Two-day and single-day GA and 21+ VIP tickets are on sale now through Dreamstate.FrontGateTickets.com.
