As with so much of the magic of Black Rock City, you never know what you’ll find as you wander the backstreets or pedal into the dust. But, if you just prick up your ears, you just might stumble upon a fleeting moment of musical serendipity that shifts your whole experience.
If you find yourself on playa this year, amidst the cacophony, consider seeking out some live music. Sit down at a piano. Soak in some jazz at sunrise. Surrender your voice for a few days (after screaming your heart out at a punk show). These moments have a way of reverberating long after the last note fades and the city disappears into a dust-caked rearview mirror. And, it just might change your tune… in the best possible way.
Without further ado, here are some of the camps and participants who bring a musical magic to the playa without the laptops and decks. For these musicians, it’s all about keys and the frets.
There are countless stories, moments, memories from bringing beats to dusty BRC — this is just one of them. We’re going to be following up with more pieces that show the diversity and depth of this aspect of Burning Man culture — DJs/producers/camp leads — in the coming months. Have a music story you want to share? Shoot it our way!
Keys and Frets: Immediacy Creating Musical Magic
The cocktail of Radical Self-expression and Immediacy found in Black Rock City creates an ideal ecosystem for nurturing live music. From acoustic jams to formal orchestral compositions, the music created with physical instruments is a distinct and essential part of Black Rock City’s cultural landscape.
Discover how Black Rock City’s electronic music pioneers are also taking the playa’s experimental spirit global, transforming dance floors from Berlin to Bali with lessons learned in the dust in “Global Lessons from Bringing Desert Music to Life.”
Through its raw Immediacy, Black Rock City opens a space where musicians can improvise, experiment and express themselves in ways that don’t always feel available back home. Matt Bell, the founder of Black Rock Piano Lounge, ironically, doesn’t play an instrument himself. But thanks to Matt’s vision and gift for organizing, over the years Black Rock Piano Lounge expanded from bringing a single upright piano to a luxe desert piano bar boasting multiple pianos, one being a baby grand, and a two-story mutant vehicle called Melton John festooned with giant LED piano keys.
“It’s just so neat to see people light up when they see actual live performers on top,” Matt said. “And most of the music that people play is not rehearsed.” There’s a spontaneity and rawness to the performances at Black Rock Piano Lounge and aboard Melton John that feels quintessentially Burning Man, just one of a million instances of Immediacy in action.
The Reverbia Effect: How Playing Three Songs in the Dust Can Change Everything
For 15 years, Reverbia has cultivated what founder Doug Abrahams proudly calls “the NPR of Burning Man” — an all-live-music theme camp that’s become a magnet for those craving something beyond the electronic beats and drops. It’s a place where music makers from around the world perform, drawing crowds of 1000s, and a crowd where every anonymous Burner decked out in goggles and dust could be the connection that changes everything for the musicians onstage.
Reverbia’s eclectic lineup reads like a music lover’s fever dream: 135+ hours of live programming across four stages. The artists who play on one of Reverbia’s four stages represent an impressive array of genres: World, Reggae, Latin, Blues, Funk, Indy Alternative, Acoustic Folk, R&B, Hip Hop, Electro Live, Gaelic, Balkan, and more.
Special concerts punctuate the week, including the camp’s moving Tribute to Lost Musicians, honoring musicians who have shuffled off this mortal coil since the last Burn. For Black Rock City 2025, Reverbia is planning an ambitious 50th anniversary performance of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” Their 2023 performance of “Dark Side of the Moon” drew 6500 people. They expect to exceed that number this year.
Reverbia creates a lot of good vibes on playa, but their magic emanates from more than its impressive roster and ambitious programming. Doug has heard the same story countless times: “Many artists have told me after Burning Man they’ve had somebody come up to them at one of their shows and, ‘I saw you at Burning Man… We were going by and we could only stay for three songs, but I got your name and I came to see you here at home.'” Some bands have crafted entire international tours from Reverbia connections, with newfound fans offering couches and venues across the globe.
Doug also explained how a single playa performance can transform a musician’s trajectory: “When you come to Burning Man, you’re going to do one show and there’s going to probably be 8,000 people at that show. You have an international crowd. People that will be at that event that you’ll never get in Burlington, Vermont. You’ll never get them in Ithaca, New York.”
Spontaneous Expression: Punk’s Unexpected Playa Match
Meredith Solin aka Mez, organizes the theme camp Awesome!(ville), where the musical stylings are of a decidedly different genre.
For her, punk rock epitomizes the Burning Man ethos — “Punk rock fills an element that’s more spontaneous that jumps into expressing raw emotion and energy,” Mez explained. The inherent creativity of Black Rock City opens a space to express ideas, styles that push the limits of what’s possible in our daily lives… often leading to unexpectedly delightful cultural hybrids.
Friday nights on playa at Awesome!(ville) feature an open mic where you can sing along to all the classic punk hits at the top of your lungs and, yes, thrash to your heart’s delight in a mosh pit. For those of a more genteel nature, Awesome!(ville) also offers an afternoon watercoloring and punk rock set.
Escaping the Cacophony: Where Jazz Becomes Wellness
Similar to inhabitants of any great city, Black Rock citizens express and experience culture in a myriad of ways. Residents offer every kind of experience from hyper-electrified, all-night parties and peaceful oases away from the wildest revels.
Juvoni Beckford is a lead at Nobo House, an international theme camp that self-identifies as a “wellness oasis.” Live music, often jazz, is a key part of the experience there. “Live music has been very rejuvenating in the context of Burning Man compared to all the hyper amped music,” Juvoni muses. “We’ve had people that are escaping the crazy sound of the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock corridors. Either they’re attracted by the sound of the piano, or they’re attracted by other sounds and they stay for a rest.” At Nobo House, live music becomes a gift, freely given, for the benefit of all brain-fried playa travelers.
Harnessing Tech for Collective Musical Creation
Burning Man culture never misses the chance to remind us all that there are No Spectators, even when it comes to making music. Burning Man’s participatory culture offers everyone an invitation to try something novel and life-expanding. This coming year in Black Rock City, a new theme camp called Backstage is inviting everyone to make music, including those who don’t know a treble clef from a ledger line. This new camp is all about empowering participants to tap into their inner rock star with the help of some cool tech.
When you come across the camp Backstage, you’ll find a low-stakes, inviting performance space. Various stations will be set up around a stage, each with a different instrument — drums, guitars, keys, and more. But, each instrument will be wired into an algorithmic system that makes sure every note you play sounds good with what everyone else is playing too. It’s the opportunity to be part of an instant jam band, no matter your skill level.
“We’re exploring ways to make it active even when we’re not staffing it,” Backstage co-lead Ben Chang said. “And at the end of the week, we want to release all the music that was collaboratively created as a kind of sonic snapshot of the playa.” A brilliant manifestation of Communal Effort, harnessing technology to enable collective creation by all-comers.
When Desert Music Echoes Beyond the Dust
What happens to the music when the dust settles?
What’s the harmony between a big-name beat-dropper and a jazz flow pro? Listen to this episode of the Burning Man LIVE podcast as it explores the thumping electronic dance music that makes BRC a DJ’s Mecca and the anything-goes improv of jazz, a dusty mirror to the Burner spirit in “Playa Music – From Bebop to Dubstep.”
Along with repping a strong black and yellow bee motif since the 1990s, the theme camp BeeYond has also been a consistent contributor to the playa music scene, especially with the arrival of their mutant vehicle, a giant fire hydrant named Red Hot Bev, which specializes in hosting DJed sunrise sets. These days, BeeYond offers a second, more intimate and acoustic alternative to the electronic soundscapes. Back at camp, the residents of BeeYond invite you to join them for live band karaoke, where actual musicians will back anyone brave enough to take the mic.
For BeeYond campers Leo O’Brien, Vandy Howell, and their 22-year-old son Truman, a proud second-generation Burner, these magical moments of musical collaboration were one of the powerful playa experiences that inspired the family to extend Burning Man’s creative spirit beeyond the playa. The family is part of a seven-person group hard at work to open a new 9,000-square-foot community-access makerspace in Emeryville, California, for artists of all kinds. Plans for the facilities include a woodshop, metal shop, electronics & multimedia (soft) shop (i.e. sewing, painting, laser cutting, light fabrication, basic electrical systems), co-working space, classroom, workbenches for rent, kitchen, event/gallery room, and loads of flexible space for makers to do their thing.
A direct beeline, if you will, from the collaborative creative energy fostered through years of music at BeeYond.
For some, Burning Man’s transformative power begins before they even reach the playa. Brian Pratt, a camper at Black Rock Piano Lounge, discovered this in 2019 when still recovering from a bout with cancer that cost him half his tongue. Even before ever setting foot on playa, he joined his new campmates in Reno to work on their mutant vehicle. After a day’s work, the group hit a dive bar with, what else, karaoke.
“These guys twisted my arm and made me get up there,” Brian recalled. Though he was barely willing to talk — his voice no longer sounding like his own — he sang Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” “It was profound,” Brian says. “I found my voice.”
That moment in Reno became what Brian calls “the first gift that Burning Man gave me before I even went to Burning Man.” On playa that year, Brian noticed nobody touched the bass guitar sitting in camp all week. So, he decided he would become Black Rock Piano Lounge’s resident bass player the next year. Though the pandemic interrupted Brian’s plans of playing on playa, it sparked a musical renaissance — he started playing online with musicians worldwide.
Now at home in Seattle, WA, Brian plays music three nights a week, organizes live band karaoke at the theme camp Hair of the Dog on playa, and has long-standing relationships with online bandmates all over the world. Brian’s motto: “Dare to suck.”
As he puts it: “If you’re going to sit there and think about people’s judgment, you may never get started.”
And he did. All because some Burners he hardly knew egged him on at a Reno dive bar, understanding that sometimes the most radical act of self-expression is simply showing up.
Live music taps into something primal and essential about Burning Man. It’s a world of surreal spectacle and electrified simulation out there. So many bells, so many blinkies, so much propane. That’s all well and amazing, but there’s something invigorating and vital to witnessing — and participating — in live musical creation. It jolts us out of our default modes of consumption and spectatorship and invites us into a space of presence, connection, and collaborative creativity.
Have you had memorable moments tickling the keys, blowing some brass, or singing your heart out in Black Rock City? Tell us all about it in the comments!
Cover image of a pianist sitting down to the keys at sunrise with the Man at his back, 2022 (Photo by Maciej Gryko)
