One moan that Electronic Dance Music (EDM) haters, of which there are many, often raise is that it all sounds the same. On last night’s evidence, as the fourth edition of the Seasons Festival filled Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, that’s invalid criticism. Four star DJs from around the world each guided the crowd on unique journeys around their chosen dance music genres.

Variety, in raving terms anyway, remains the spice of life.

Grammy-nominated producer Duke Dumont started the ball rocking with a distinctly British take on EDM, blending UK Garage breaks with some tuneful house. Despite the early kick off (he was finished by 9.20pm) the crowd, who had all come to dance, were unanimous in their commitment to everything he was dropping.

The energy remained high during Australian Flume’s set, whose slowed down approach to artistic DJing produced an hour and a half of gentle grooving rather than hands-in-the-air lunacy. Interrupting his own flow to announce that he was going to spin “something special,” he debuted his own remix of Lorde’s “Tennis Court,” one of the highlights of a performance that included an appearance by the ghost of the Notorious B.I.G. and was repeatedly punctuated by the DJ getting creative on a sample pad with drumsticks.

The pace, and the atmosphere, shifted dramatically after Flume’s delicate ingenuity as the cranked up electro house of Turkish-German DJ Deniz Koyu arrived as a high-speed assault on the senses. Interrupting the onslaught of electronic noise only to throw in a few “woo-hoo’s” from Blur’s “Song 2,” the overall effect was a merciless hour-long barrage of brutality that sent the crowd into delirium. Tremendous stuff.

EDM has such vocal critics it’s become enjoyable embracing the hostility. Everything a confused media loves getting upset about is there in one place. It begins with this abstract, non-organic music. Throw in an unmistakable aroma of sex (there was plenty of skin on display at the Coliseum from both men and women who had dressed to sweat) and the visible signs of recreational drug use, and it’s a moral panic waiting to explode.

Granted, a slow stream of casualties would occasionally stagger or be pulled from the crowd, but an alert security team and a ‘help your neighbour’ partying atmosphere suggested that strugglers would receive quicker access to first aid than the equivalent heavy drinkers on Granville Street.

The erstwhile headliner of the night, Russian-German DJ Zedd (Anton Zaslavski to his Mom), won a Grammy for his track “Clarity,” which perhaps says more about the uninspired nature of the Award’s selection process than the excitement the dance music is capable of.

Considering the adventurousness what had come before, Zedd’s set of remixed pop hits came as a deeply conservative selection. Cranking up the energy (and volume) of inexplicably popular bland pop (Capital Cities, Bastille and Ellie Goulding to name just three) didn’t push any boundaries, but it was still lapped up by a crowd enjoying itself too much to trouble themselves with musical analysis. The evening finished with a remixed “Alive” by Empire of the Sun, the crowd’s singing filling the Pacific Coliseum.

Seriously sweaty. Eminently enjoyable. Seasons 2014 delivered.