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Daft Punk Breaks Up in a very 'Daft Punk' Way

28 years after forming in Paris, the duo calls it quits.

By Silek Sat 27 Feb, 2021 1:26 PM - Last Updated: Sat 27 Feb, 2021 5:48 PM
On a muddy Memorial Day weekend in 1996, at the Eagle Cave Resort and Campground in Grant County Wisconsin, Guy -Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bengalter would change the world of EDM and the festival circuit in ways which none of them could have foreseen.

The ‘Even Further’ festival would come to be known as Daft Punks’s first official US performance almost a decade before kicking off 2006’s Coachella with their ‘Alive’ tour, and over a year before their 1997 debut album ‘Homework’. While fans would become used to, and even expect, the spectacle, grandeur and ‘senses’ enveloping performances that would catapult Daft Punk into the world’s collective conscience and define them as groundbreaking, genera transcending artist’s, this small Wisconsin festival would find them in a plain tent with small light show and well designed sound system.DaftPunkGrammys
Daft Punk accept the award for record
of the year for "Get Lucky" at the 56th
annual Grammy Awards in 2014.


Speaking in 2007, De Homem-Christo said, “We were 20-year-old kids, and I thought it was really one of the best festivals we’d done. It wasn’t huge, but it was in the woods, in nature, really outside the city. Techno music was known in Chicago and Detroit, but it wasn’t as big as it is now. It felt like a special moment; we have great memories of it. Even now, people go on YouTube to get videos from that night; it was true energy.”Daft%20Punk
Guy -Manuel de Homem-Christo and
Thomas Bengalter


Last week Daft Punk broke up, announcing the split in an 8 minute video lifted from their 2006 film Electroma entitled ‘Epilogue’. When asked, their longtime publicist Kathryn Frazier confirmed the dissolution, but wouldn’t provide any explanation or comments.

Daft Punk followed up the success of the landmark ‘Homework’, with 2001’s ‘Discovery’. By this time the iconic ‘robot’ suits were on full display and would become their trademark as they released their third album 2005’s ‘Human After All’ and the subsequent ‘Alive 2007’.

2013 saw Daft Punk take their place back atop the pyramid with ‘Random Access Memories’. The lead single ‘Get Lucky’ would sell millions of copies and go on to win two Grammys. The album itself would win a further three Grammys, including album of the year.


Let us know what you think in the comments.


WRITTEN AND EDITED BY Silek

2 Comments
Sat 27 Feb, 2021 1:52 PM
Excellent article.

Very sad news for a fan like me, I grew up with them: when I was doing my homeworks (pun intended) I was listening to them, when I was making a video game I was listening to them, when I am doing 3D renders I am listening to them (and I will still do, of course).

As a French I will just say adieu, et merci pour tout.
Wed 03 Mar, 2021 2:28 AM
w8.... techno wasn't big in the Chicago and Detroit in 1996??
I must admit to doubting that fact. Seeing that the Dutch Gabber (called hardcore these days) evolved in Rotterdam out of the Chicago and Detroit house music that came to the Netherlands late 1991 early 1992 theres an indiscrepancy there somewhere.... After 1992 Gabber, or hardcore, exploded in the Netherlands, almost died in the Netherlands through 1998-2000 and then exploding again and this time going global and now has a very strong, active and growing following world wide i cannot imagine that the sound that spawned it, the detroit and chicago house, weren't big in those cities in 1996.....
I myself am a Gabber veteran (class of Parkzicht 1992) and not really wel versed on the softer side of EDM (or techno, or as we used to call it: House) so i am undoubtedly wrong. Anyone able and willing to enlighten me??