The one responsible for hitting the final play button at Rock in Rio was British DJ and producer Fatboy Slim, on a night packed with legends of Brazilian music and international music.

João Bosco, at 80, brought MPB to the Global Village stage; Gilberto Gil, at 84, showed off his royalty on the Mundo stage; and Elton John, who came out of official touring retirement for this one-off performance, closed out the same  stage with a historic show. In other words, all that was missing was the electronic scene legend who helped establish the DJ’s central role in that world: Fatboy Slim on the New Dance Order stage.

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And since New Dance Order works like an afterparty for festivalgoers, there was time for everyone to swing by the dance floor before heading home. The crowd watching him was made up of people of all ages, from kids to seniors.

Despite having toured Brazil dozens of times over his career, this was Fatboy Slim’s first time playing Rock in Rio. A late debut, sure, but one that made perfect sense as the closer for the festival’s first block of shows: no one there seemed willing to go home before the last beat dropped.

Before taking the stage, the Brit had already been showing Brazil an unusual amount of affection. In an interview with Billboard Brasil from his home in Brighton, he summed up his connection with the country in a good-humored way: “Honestly, I don’t know what explains this connection. I think my mum slept with a Brazilian and never told anyone,” he joked. He took the comparison further: “When I arrived in Brazil, it was like meeting the rest of your family that you didn’t know existed.”

On sharing the Sept. 7 lineup with Elton John and Gilberto Gil, he didn’t hide his pride: “It’s wonderful, because I know both artists and have huge respect for both of them. So being on the same lineup is an honor.” He added, on the weight of representing British electronic music alongside two legends from different generations and countries: “I feel like I’m representing electronic music from England. It’s a position of great honor, but with it comes great responsibility,” said Fatboy Slim.

The DJ’s relationship with Brazil also plays out in the studio: this year, he put his name on “Funk Drunk (feat. 7KY)” alongside Brazilian artist Carola and producer Felix Da Housecat, a partnership born after the São Paulo-based DJ sent him a remix of one of his tracks a few years back.

The show delivered exactly what you’d expect from a Fatboy Slim set: a nonstop stream of big beat, breaks and samples spanning decades, stitching together classics from his own catalog like “The Rockafeller Skank,” “Right Here, Right Now” and “Praise You” with more recent electronic hits. It’s that mix of nostalgia and dance floor energy that keeps his name among the few DJs of the 1990s/2000s generation still able to pack a major festival stage in 2026.

It’s almost impossible to talk about Fatboy Slim without mentioning Big Beach Boutique II. In July 2002, the free show he played on the beach in Brighton, his hometown, drew more than 250,000 people — four times the expected crowd — and went down in history as one of the largest gatherings ever recorded at a music event in the UK. The episode even became the 2023 documentary “Right Here, Right Now.” It’s no exaggeration to say that day helped shape what we now understand as the “DJ as festival headliner,” a role that New Dance Order, decades later, tries to re-create every night in Cidade do Rock.

Closing out the first weekend with this legend at the helm was, in a way, a symbolic wrap-up: if Rock in Rio 2026 had already celebrated MPB with João Bosco and Gilberto Gil, romance with Roupa Nova and Guilherme Arantes, and the grandeur of rock and pop with Elton John, all that was left was to pay homage to the dance floor. Fatboy Slim did it exactly the way he always has: no rush, no formula, just groove.

–This article was written by Vitória Zane for Billboard Brasil