As a fan of dance music, who loves everything to do with the genre, there comes a time when you truly sense and feel all those emotions, which are associated with the genre, every now and then in reality; For a true fan it is such moments of nirvana which make him or her believe in the music he listens to and follows each and every day. The idiosyncrasies of such enthusiasts of dance music invoke a power unlike any other, such a power which spreads happiness, joy and makes each individual in a crowd dance together as one entity, jumping with their hands raised to their favourite beats with wonderstruck eyes.
Such was the scenario at one of India’s most renowned dance music event organizer, Sunburn’s flagship annual outing in the capital region of India, Sunburn Noida 2013. With the huge success of its first edition, the second edition of Sunburn Noida had us excited much before the date of the festival. There was an immense amount of buzz around town about the line-up and what more the event would hold for the fans.
After a little bit of waiting, restless fans all across NCR got their due. Along came the extravagant line-up announcement, which as expected sent a remarkable number of fans into frenzy. Among those who were going to grace the stages at the festival were, globally renowned superstar, Dash Berlin, the gorgeous and widely popular Aussie twins, Nervo, the highly respected founder of Dutch trance, Rank 1, electronic music tastemaker, Porter Robinson and trance producer/DJ extraordinaire, DJ Shogun along with a host of our very own domestic names which currently form a part of the cream of the domestic circuit. After such a mammoth line-up announcement we would be putting it mildly if we said that the excitement surrounding the festival had now gone through the roof.
Coming to October 6th, the day of the festival, it was relatively a cloudy day, which made for ideal weather as opposed to the heat that had been prevalent during the past few days before the festival. Clearly, even the god’s wanted us to have a blast.
Upon reaching the venue, the Galgotia University Campus, we saw a number of ravers strolling outside with wide smiles on their faces and eyes proclaiming pronounced hysteria. Some of the ravers had also added to the festival atmosphere by donning eye-catching and unique get up’s which you can catch a glimpse of here.
By now we were as excited as every other fan to enter ‘Planet Sunburn’ and experience its grandeur. The doors opened at about 4pm to an ecstatic crowd and with our bands tied on to our wrists we found ourselves entering the venue but little did we know at that time what would transpire in the next few hours.
As our team entered the venue, with fans all around us chanting repeated, “Woohoo’s”; we were welcomed by a loud crescendo, which blazoned that, Sunburn Noida 2013 had kicked off. What struck each of us in the first instance as we entered was the majestic-ness of the stages and the effort the team had put in in terms of stage and sound production. The large and well-designed stages had us overwhelmed. Clearly, Sunburn had lived up to the unbelievable pre-festival buzz that had been generated. We soaked in the vibe of an international music festival, gob-smacked and proud of how far India’s electronic dance music scene has come. The stilt walkers, towering jellyfish structure, and random bursts of colour in every corner made it feel truly like a carnival.
Moving towards the ‘Space Jungle’ stage we noticed its wrought iron frame, blooming creepers, and glow-in-the-dark masks as our very own Delhi based DJ & producer, Vipul was at the console, bursting out tech and deep house tracks. The other stage which was termed the ‘Space Station’ stage had a futuristic feel to it and housed a physical form of the space ship we had seen on the events poster right above the console. Kicking things of at that stage were domestic duo on the rise, NDS & Blue who gathered quite an audience early into the festival as they treated us to some of their new original productions like, “Popcorn”, “Bombass” and a new version of their widely successful release “Senses”.
It was soon time for Sahej Bakshi, better known as Dualist Inquiry to take over at the “Space Jungle”. Grinning at the crowd, he opened his set with his original production, ‘Qualia’, and a little later went on to burst into his live guitar riffs in his trademark style. He had the crowd singing along to his remix of the Ghostbusters theme song & even played out a mash-up of Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ and ‘Get Lucky’ while, the globally renowned trance superstar, Rank 1 took over the “Space Station” from NDS & Blue.
Regarded as the founder of Dutch trance, Rank 1 played out a colossal set to a packed audience and had the crowd greet him with a roar as he kicked off with his own production ‘L.E.D There Be Light’ & followed it up with his remix of Conjure One’s, ‘Under The Gun’. Later into his set he went on to drop tunes of the likes of Cosmic Gate’s ‘So Get Up’ & Armin van Buuren & W&W’s ‘D# Fat’ both of which have garnered many a fan worldwide.
As Rank 1 went about his business, the ‘Space Jungle’ was taken over by Anish Sood and Rishabh Joshi from the domestic duo Lost Stories, playing their back-to-back set. From the word go, Rishabh and Anish were completely in tandem and they made sure to connect with the crowd, making hand-hearts, waving glowsticks and leaving the console to spray the crowd with the CO2 guns through their set. They dropped a number of electro driven mash-up’s which ensured everyone was on their feet. In the meantime, towards the end of his mind-blowing set, Rank 1 dropped some smash hits like, ‘Airwave’, ‘Witness’ and ‘7 Instead of 8’, which left us reminiscing about ASOT 600, Mumbai.
Anish & Rishab then made way for an artist which a large section of the crowd had been waiting for – Porter Robinson. As Porter popped up on stage, flames shot out of the stage, leaving us stunned. He injected love, energy, and confetti into the crowd, leaving the audience hooked. As he went on to play his hit single ‘Easy’, featuring Mat Zo, the crowd seemed to be infused with a new bout of energy as they let out cheers, shouting themselves hoarse, yet raging harder & harder. Buzzing with energy he was in full swing as the speakers boomed in unison with the soles of our feet.
As Porter was going about his business, the ‘Space Station’ had been taken over by Shogun who had been laying down some incredibly powerful tunes like Hardwell and W&W’s ‘Jumper’, Axwell’s ‘In My Mind’, Zedd’s ‘Clarity’ and many more. However, no Shogun set is complete without his renowned vocal trance hit, ‘Skyfire’ and as he gave the crowd this fabulous work of his, everyone spread their arms in joy and happiness.
Around the same time Porter had started to wind down, but not before playing his sensational chartbuster, “Language”, ending his set Robinson lifted his hands up and saluted his audience. We must make a special note of Porter’s visuals, they were truly, truly beautiful.
Once Porter & Shogun had finished their sets, it was time for the two headlining set’s of the night – Nervo at the ‘Space Jungle’ and Dash Berlin at the ‘Space Station’. The Nervo twins appeared on stage looking seemingly ethereal, in their signature attire. After a warm hug to Porter and an equally warm ‘namaste’ to the crowd, they opened their set with a mash-up of the infamous, ‘The Way We See The World’ and W&W & Ummet Ozcan’s ‘The Code’. As the lyrics, ‘It’s the way we see the world, yes it is!’ boomed across the venue; Mim pumped the crowd up, taking to the mic saying, ‘Are you feeling us Delhaaaaay?!’.
Bubbling with enthusiasm & with choreographed dance moves to their lyrics it seemed as if there was nothing these women can’t do. A little further into their set they dropped their recent release, ‘Not Taking This No More’ and got the crowd even more excited as they went about instagramming photos of them and graciously smiling at the different banners, which were being held up high by different parts of the crowd.
At the same time Dash Berlin had taken stage at the ‘Space Station’. Known to be one of those DJ’s who play a set full of melodies and vocal trance bangers, he took to stage in fascinating fashion, with his iPad greeting the Sunburn crowd whilst displaying the text “hello sunburn”. Leaving fans spellbound hie jumped into his set with a orchestral intro mix of his much adored song ‘Waiting’. Thunderous sounds followed with short clips from his music videos that made a few people skip a heartbeat as he finally dropped his sensational 4AM remix of Hardwell’s smash-hit, ‘Apollo’ followed by another massive hit, ‘Jar of Hearts’ which left the crowd jumping with their hands in the air.
Next up he played his rework edit of ‘City of Dreams’ by Alesso and Dirty South, and the crowd couldn’t help but be dancing carefree. Dash kept a perfect balance between uplifting and hard-hitting tunes. He played tracks like ‘Earth Meets Water’, ‘D# Fat’, ‘Fool For Life’ and ‘Animals’ and mixed them up seamlessly. Uncompromisingly, he treated the crowd to a mind-boggling set, playing some of his very own exclusive mashups or how his fans term them – “dashups”. The most notable of them were “Lethal Industry vs Island”, “Sweet Koko” and “D# Fat Out of Heaven Satisfaction”. He also cued in some classic dance tunes into his set including Darude’s “Sandstrom” and Underworld’s “Born Slippy”. In the last hour of his set Dash dropped lot of his original productions and remixes including “Better Half of Me”, “Till The Sky Falls Down”, his bootleg of “Better of Alone” and more.
What made the headlining sets spectacular apart from the music were the visuals and astonishing pyrotechnics the Sunburn team had arranged. While Nervo dropped Alesso and One Republic’s, “If I Lose Myself” which led to a plethora of streamers, smoke, and strobe lights making for quite a party, visuals during Dash’s set were also breathtaking which accompanied the music perfectly. Adding to the festival’s feel were sunburn balloons, confetti bops and of course the stupendous lighting.
Nervo chose to end the night with their collaboration with Hook N Sling, ‘Reason’, and like supernovas in the sky, they stood at the console like towering goddesses and folded their hands once again, saying ‘namaste’ to the crowd, on receiving an encore from the crowd, Liv adorably apologized, “we’re not allowed to play anymore, guys!”, but she thanked everyone in the crowd for welcoming them to our incredible country.
On the other hand, by the end of his set Dash had swept Sunburn Noida into complete Dash Berlin mode and he ended his marvellous two-hour set with his original “Man On The Run”. For those of you who assumed it couldn’t get better, all who were present witnessed a striking display of fireworks in the sky.
It would be an understatement to say that Sunburn Noida was a spectacular outing for all dance music fans alike. With two power packed stages catered to by some of the world’s finest artists, the event was a wonderful experience from beginning till the end and definitely one that is bound to be remembered for quite a while.
We would like thank the entire team at Sunburn for such an amazing festival & look forward to next years instalment!
_________________________________________________________________
Reviewed by: Vedika Berry, Mallika Pal, Varun Luthra, Sarthak Singhal & Aditya Seth
Edited by: Aditya Seth