In promotion of his album, which was released July 11, 2025, Lake headlined several shows in summer 2025 including his Red Rocks debut, his two-night performance at New York’s Brooklyn Storehouse and a sold-out show with Green Velvet and Odd Mob at Waterfront Park in San Diego.

At many EDM shows and festivals, it is typical to find a sparse crowd at the beginning of the night. Lake’s show wasn’t one of those events. 

While the venue wasn’t absolutely crawling with people, the scene was lively both inside and out.. Outside, people conversed and flowed around the many vendors selling pashminas, fans and flow stars, alongside food trucks ranging from tacos to ice cream.

Though tech-house fans often get a bad reputation, this crowd was generally more agreeable than not. While the middle of the crowd seemed to contain more aggression, loud conversations or other inappropriate behavior, I found the people near the front and back to be friendly, energetic and respectful. Most were fans of the artists; one had even met Lake multiple times, owning signed merchandise and an elaborate perler, a beaded kandi necklace.

Lake’s visuals started perfectly on time at midnight, transporting the audience directly from a fun dance party to an immersive visual-audio experience. Unique tour visuals, eyecatching red lights and lasers pulsed in sync with beat drops, occasionally leading to minimal visuals that kept the eye’s attention but didn’t distract from a groove. 

But, it didn’t take Lake coming to the stage for the energy to pick up. Just a bit after 10 p.m., when the event started, the dance floor was already filled with energy for the openers, Austin Feldman and Just Manning. The duo started with a mix of house– tech, progressive and pure– that gave everyone in the audience something to listen to. 

It wasn’t all fun and games on the dance floor, though. In just the first hour, three people were carried by staff out for medical reasons. Later, during Kyle Watson’s set, another person would be carried out. Thankfully, good etiquette was present on the floor, with attendees making way for staff to intervene.

Despite these incidents, Kyle Watson quickly brought energy back onto the floor, with a more strongly tech-house flavor than his predecessor. His sound felt edgier as well, with more bass-related  buildups and aggressive sounds that led back into heavy house and tech-house drops.

Chris Lake is regarded as a pioneer in today’s tech-house scene and his own set proved why in just a matter of minutes. He masterfully wove out of his own album tracks to recent hit tech-house tracks and classic house moments. 

His discography alone showed the DJ’s wide range–from his club hit “LA NOCHE” to his grimy remix of Bell Biv Devoe’s Toxic to the groovy “one2three” with Disclosure and Leven Kali.

The crowd’s energy was infectious, driven minimally by Chris’s subtle energy and visuals and primarily from his creative set choices and familiar beats. Each track saw the floor filled with movement, each buildup garnered anticipation, and with each drop, you could feel the crowd react. The culmination of this energy was hearing thousands of voices come together for Lake’s melodic summer hit “Savana” and the venue erupting into dance at its last beat drop. 

In two hours, Lake gave the audience moments to dance, sing and bask in music, bringing friends and strangers together on the floor. For a tour called “Chemistry”, Lake’s December performance ultimately lived up to its name—creating a natural chemistry between himself and the crowd, and between the crowd and the music.