DeadMau5 Closes Lollapalooza With Fest's Biggest Dance Party

George Pimentel, WireImage

They started showing up as early as Friday: Deadmau5 heads, or Mau5heads, the iconic beach-ball-sized helmet worn by the Toronto house DJ/producer also known as Joel Zimmerman. Why anyone would want to lug the massive, heavy headgear around a music festival, especially on Sunday when it poured at Lollapalooza twice, seemed baffling.

Some of them glow in the dark, some of them are fuzzy, some are green and some sparkle like disco balls. The fanciest, of course, is Zimmerman's own, which acts like an L.E.D. video wall at times, illuminating a face beneath his mouse ears that mouths the lyrics of his samples. But the Mau5head wasn't the most visually pleasing aspect of Deadmau5's set -- his Q*Bert-video-game-inspired stage setup (put together by the team behind Daft Punk's pyramid stage) was, separating, strobing and splitting to Deadmau5's music.

When rain started to drop again at the start of the set, it didn't stop Deadmau5 from throwing a party. Actually, it only made it stronger. Along with the trippy setup, Deadmau5's beats take you on a roller coaster ride, at times dark and slow and without warning it pops back up, making you want to throw your hands in the air like you're going down an 80-foot drop. It's the kind of music that should be launching NASA or Richard Branson into space and redefining the term world music, and it has done just that in the past couple of years, with electronic music like Deadmau5's finding more mainstream platforms in the US to play on.

Deadmau5 charged through mixes of his well-known tracks like 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff,' 'Some Chords' and 'Raise Your Weapon,' the latter off his compilation '4x4=12' that was released at the end of last year. Sofia "Sofi" Toufa came out for her two guest features on the album, '‪Sofi Needs a Ladder‬' and 'One Trick Pony.' "This is so awesome," she exclaimed looking out on the soggy crowd of people moving to the music and cheering along at each crescendo.

Deadmau5's roller-coaster ride ended 10 minutes early with the whole crowd cheering "One more song!" and "USA! USA!" to no avail. Those who came prepared left still wearing their Mau5heads and those that didn't left wanting one of their own. Luckily, there are already instructions for making one at home.

Deadmau5 Performs 'Some Chords' at Lollapalooza

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