When anyone mentions Dance Music in India you can be sure as hell that the name ‘Sunburn‘ is mentioned somewhere in that conversation. Being India’s first and Asia’s largest dance music festival there’s no surprise that hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe assemble every year in Goa to experience one of the top music festivals in the world.
It is known that everything has a pro and con, in this instance ‘Yay or Nay’, and my experience of Sunburn Goa 2014 edition was no different. There were plenty of memories created, albeit a few I wish to forget. Look on below for the top Yay or Nay moments and reminisce in what has been!
HELICOPTER RIDES FOR FESTIVAL GOERS
There were Helicopter rides for Sunburn goers at this years edition. You were taken for a 10-15 minute chopper ride and shown the Festival from various breath-taking views and angles. If the festival wasn’t enough to satiate your viewing needs, the chopper made sure you even got a marvellous view of the water bodies, beaches, cliffs and more. All for a cool Rs.6,000/-. Now we know that is a tad steep but it is after all a novel add on provided by Sunburn to further enhance their fans’ overall experience.
VERDICT: YAY!
KLINGANDE MESMERISING THE MAINSTAGE
French deep-house new boy Cedric aka Klingande took to the mainstage at 6pm and the crowd around Sunburn instantly flocked towards the mainstage to follow the beautiful music emanating from there. And like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Klingande controlled and charmed his followers with some spellbinding Sax solos mixed with groovy kicks and bass that were nothing short of spectacular to jive to.
VERDICT: YAY!
DANNY AVILA
People were waiting to see Madrid born Avila take the mainstage by storm and set the pedestal for Sander Van Doorn from there. After an energetic set from Deniz Koyu, the fans didn’t want the party to stop right there, but…. it did. Due to some technical issues, Danny could only showcase his skills for a total of 15 minutes. Safe to say this did not go well with the fans who had to pretty much stand in silence for 45 minutes.
VERDICT: NAY!
SPACE STATION VOLUME LEVELS
Space Station is known to be the stage that’s caressed by deep-house/techno DJs and fans alike. Some groovy bass-filled music with the perfect bpm to keep you on your feet for hours on end. So it was rather annoying that the volume levels at this stage were at a bare minimum. The reason given was that the neighbours get disturbed. To be fair, isn’t that why the festival has taken permission from the government? To have loud music upto the allowed time? After much persuasion and ridicule (one keen fan enthused: “You may as well shut this stage down for the remainder of the festival”), the technical people finally caved in and raised the roof for the closer of the night….. JAMIE JONES!
VERDICT: NAY!
JAMIE JONES GETS DELAYED… BUT ABSOLUTELY PWNS!
Fans were getting impatient when their fill of Jamie Jones was not met for the night. We were told he was running late due to traffic and everyone had feared the worst… a no-show. But having hit the stage 10 minutes later than scheduled, the Welsh Wizard absolutely, and I mean ABSOLUTELY, demolished the space station. And if that wasn’t enough to satisfy his fans, Jamie came down from the stage post-set to interact with his fans and apologize for coming late… what a gent! Easily the highlight of the night!
VERDICT: YAY!
DUBVISION COMING LATE
Continuing from where they left off, Sunburn had another act delayed… DUBVISION. Fans had gathered at the Cubezoid but Dubvision were a no-show for a good 1-and-a-half hours. Although ‘DJ Fenner’ did make up for it with some innovative mashups and remixes. The silver lining to this delay probably was fans unearthing a new gem in the form of DJ Fenner, and to be fair Dubvision did show up later to open for Paul Oakenfold and absolutely wrecked the Cubezoid with some intense electro music. We’d say it eventually worked out fine for everybody.
VERDICT: YAY!
KNIFE PARTY
Need we say more?
VERDICT: ABSOLUTELY YAY!
MAKJ… SAD DAY
Personally, I went the 3rd day drooling to see house-genius Sasha and MAKJ. Waiting to eargasm all over the place with some sick electronic music and hard-hitting bass, MAKJ was THE act I was waiting for, in all of Sunburn. Sunburn’s DJ Shaan was to open for Mackenzie, and Shaan warmed up the decks with some big-room hits and the crowd was getting closer and more eager when the clock hit 6:30pm….. “No MAKJ!? Ok let’s wait for a few, maybe he’s running late like most DJ’s were…. 6:50pm, not yet!? Ok, maybe Sunburn will announce something…. 7:15pm no announcement yet and still DJ Shaan on the mainstage?” Having told fans I was from Bangin Beats, they suddenly felt it their duty to tell me and to make me ensure that I detail their disdain towards Sunburn for not at least announcing that MAKJ would be delayed/no-show. We later found out through a fan’s tweet to MAKJ that he couldn’t make it due to Visa issues. Fair enough, not Sunburn’s fault per say but at least inform your fans so they can decide where to go from there instead of waiting on an act that isn’t going to show.
VERDICT: TOTAL NAY!
DIMITRI VEGAS & LIKE MIKE
Current world No.2 duo DV&LM were received on the mainstage to a rapturous crowd and they ensured the noise levels didn’t dip for even a second. With some bangers and ear-opening mashups, the Belgian duo ensured Sunburn 2014 was closed in the most vivid fashions ever.
VERDICT: YAY!
SMOKING AND CHEWING GUM
Throughout the festival, the security was laid with one task: ‘Find and trash all chewing-gum that you find’. Anyone found with chewing-gum was asked to throw it out or consume it immediately at security check. Sure I understand it’s a way drugs can be brought into the festival, then why not sell some gum in the festival? EVERYONE knows gum is a bare necessity in festivals, so why go out of your way to make sure the fans don’t have any?
Cigarettes (WARNING: WE DO NOT ENCOURAGE CIGARETTE SMOKING) weren’t allowed to be taken in. Fair enough, they were being sold inside so everyone was eventually ok. There were designated smoking zones and if you were caught smoking outside of one you were fined, again fair enough they’re the rules. But the third and final day was what irked everyone. There were no cigarettes being sold inside and there was no formal announcement made by the organizers of the same. So people were pretty antsy to say the least.
VERDICT: NAY!
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