A different type of British invasion had EDM fans in a trance at the Queen Mary in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
Armed with turntables, social media-star-turned-professional-party-starter Fish56Octagon made his U.S. festival debut Nov. 21 and 22 at Insomniac\u2019s Dreamstate SoCal, where he performed alongside some of the world\u2019s most preeminent electronic artists, including Ti\u00ebsto, Paul Oakenfold, Gareth Emery, Ferry Corsten and Chicane.<\/p>\n
Fish, as he\u2019s called, is a 46-year-old from the London suburbs who joined TikTok on a drunken whim after being introduced to the app by friends in 2021. Now boasting over a million followers across platforms, he\u2019s seen his life flip because of that choice \u2014 quitting a full-time marketing career to become a DJ, produce music and play sets at some of the world\u2019s biggest music festivals in the four years since he uploaded his first video.<\/p>\n
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Though his initial post was about his watch collection, the self-described \u201cpetrol head\u201d quickly went deep into creating content about cars and made a successful side hustle within a couple years. Crossover between auto enthusiasts and the music lovers in his audience meant the dance songs he used to soundtrack his car videos and sporadic vinyl-haul unboxings spawned passionate discussion in the comments about the classic rave songs Fish was sharing with the world.<\/p>\n
He also benefited from an accidental, scroll-stopping visual hook repeated across videos born from his employer asking him to ensure it didn\u2019t look like he was posting during business hours: middle-aged, thin and bald, dropping dad moves in front of his sprawling Technics decks and pumping his fists to the beat between bites of Weetabix biscuits, all while wearing a red and black dressing gown (what Americans would call a robe), gifted to Fish\u2019s wife by his mother.<\/p>\n
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Screen shot of Fish DJing on TikTok in his bathrobe<\/p>\n
(TikTok)<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gown is elegant,\u201d wrote a fan in the comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was legit my mum\u2019s but she found it too hot,\u201d Fish responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou the same build as your mum\u201d another person wrote back, punctuating the comment with a sweating smiley face emoji.<\/p>\n
Fish also began to livestream on TikTok late into the night, playing his own mixes for the first time in 20 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember seeing people commenting on the Live going, \u2018Mate, we were watching you before we went out. We\u2019ve just gone on a whole night out in our city, come back and you\u2019re still here playing,\u2019\u201d Fish said. \u201cI just love it. Sharing and being able to get out those obscure records. Sometimes it\u2019s the big anthems everyone knows and sometimes it\u2019s a tune that was an anthem to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s had a decades-long education in electronic music. Fish was introduced to the genre on the cusp of his teen years through an episode of the British detective show \u201cInspector Morse.\u201d One episode took place in the illegal rave scene and he thought it looked like fun to party in an old warehouse.<\/p>\n
Fish\u2019s taste quickly developed by listening to pirate radio and vinyl. He pieced together his first setup with two hi-fi record players his dad had in the attic. Only one had pitch control. He learned to beatmatch by plugging a player into each side of his amplifier and using the balance knob to fade between them. He was given Soundlab DLP-1 belt-driven turntables for his birthday and his obsession accelerated over the next several years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fish56Octagon performing at the Dreamstate music festival in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
(Niyaz Pirani)<\/p>\n
\u201cBy then I was just spending every penny that I had on vinyl building my record collection up. It was all rave music, early old school, hardcore jungle, and then happy hardcore, drum and bass around that sort of time, early to mid-\u201990s,\u201d he said. \u201cI played quite a few house parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
He became a de-facto resident DJ in college, spinning vinyl in the student union, and dabbled in music production at the same time. He eventually sold his analog kit and synthesizers when he switched to Ableton. He downsized his record collection as he converted them to MP3s.<\/p>\n
The demands of his post-college marketing career meant the DJ dream disappeared for many years. That was until his TikTok Live sets gave him a second chance as club promoters reached out in the hope of booking him. Fish admits a lack of confidence caused him to stay on the sidelines. It was an offer in February 2024 to play a solo show at Hidden in Manchester \u2014 about the same time he switched his channel over entirely to music \u2014 that got him out of his house and onto a stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if I wasn\u2019t sure that people would come, I knew that anyone that did come would be coming to see me,\u201d he said. \u201c \u2026 I ended up putting a night on where I played for five hours straight, just me from the start to the end. When the tickets went on sale, it sold out a good couple of months before the event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fish wondered if it was a one-off event or the beginning of a life-changing run. Then the offers came in from other big U.K. cities \u2014 FishTales in Newcastle; acid techno at Beaverworks in Leeds; raves in Liverpool and Birmingham. He hired an agent. Dropped some merch.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot sure how this happened! But I\u2019m here for it and hope you are too,\u201d he wrote online.<\/p>\n
A 20-date summer tour featured three different sets at the famed Glastonbury Festival, and appearances at Reading and Creamfields. He also traveled to Ireland, Scotland and Malta, marking his first time playing professionally outside of England.<\/p>\n
He quit his day job in August 2024 to DJ and focus on music production full time with the support of his wife, children and parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey support me even though it comes at a cost that I can\u2019t always spend as much time with them, but they understand that I\u2019m following my dream, following my passion, and doing something positive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s gained an appreciation as a historian of the genre. Fish\u2019s followers have grown to include Skrillex, David Guetta, Disclosure, Bicep and more of the artists he has admired and now counts among his peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor about the first year, I often would wake up in the morning \u2014 I\u2019m gonna get a little bit emotional just talking about this \u2014 but I\u2019d wake up in the morning and just think, \u2018Wow, that was all a dream, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d he said. \u201cThen I look at my phone. I can see that actually it was real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fish attributes his success to social media, though he said it\u2019s a mistake to think just having social media followers guarantees bookings and the upward trajectory of one\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re actually a function of each other. It\u2019s because I was making content that proved to be popular about music that I managed to build up a following and have those opportunities come my way,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve now played, getting on for, 200 professional gigs at various clubs, festivals, events, raves, all around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fish waited until November 2025 to make his first trek to North America with an 11-date run featuring his first U.S. festival booking. He chose Dreamstate because he\u2019s always had a special place in his heart for trance and the emotional connection people have with the music.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love all dance music, but trance is the one that can kind of tug at your heartstrings a bit with those melodies, and the chord progression, and the way that the beats can be so crisp when they come in, and the way the bass hits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fish performed Friday night on \u201cThe Vision.\u201d It\u2019s the same stage played by legends Chicane and Paul Oakenfold this year and Darude last. He also co-headlined an hour-long B2B with Night 1 Dreamstate headliner Gareth Emery early Sunday morning, as the top-billed act for the festival\u2019s afterparty in the Grand Salon of the iconic Queen Mary.<\/p>\n
He made his way to LAX after stepping off stage at 3 a.m. to fly to New York and play the last three hours of a 24-hour rave.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chicane and Fish56Octagon run into each other in the lobby of the along Beach Hilton after playing the same stage Night 1 of Dreamstate.<\/p>\n
(Niyaz Pirani)<\/p>\n
Fish has tour dates in New Zealand and Australia toward the end of the year, plus the largest show of his career March 28 at London\u2019s O2 Academy Brixton. He\u2019s also releasing music for himself and others under his record label Octagon Discs.<\/p>\n
As his audience multiplies, Fish\u2019s earliest followers remain enthralled by his seemingly infinite rise.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did the dude who recommends second-hand cars get to this. So happy for you dude,\u201d one fan wrote in the comments of his Dreamstate recap video post.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic was my number 1 passion but i thought I was too old. Thanks for the support bro,\u201d Fish replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing,\u201d another chimed in. \u201cBut I would not recognize u in the wild without the bathrobe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A different type of British invasion had EDM fans in a trance at the Queen Mary in Long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8142,3146,1043,9831,10801,45694,131,133,132,2667,330,1869,53917,53919,53918,8843,8074,72],"class_list":["post-98744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-comment","tag-dj","tag-event","tag-first-time","tag-fish","tag-follower","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-morning","tag-music","tag-night","tag-rave-music","tag-trance","tag-vinyl","tag-way","tag-world","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}