If we ever invent time travel, reliving The Enchanted Valley Carnival at Ambey Valley would be DEFCON 1!
David Guetta for One, New World Punx for another, from camp fire scenes at night to the scorching heat in the broad sunlight, reasons are a many, words a few to explain! But if you ever were Voldemort and had 7 lives, you could put all of them at use and perhaps still fall short to experience what all EVC has to offer you.
For the second year in a row and perhaps one of it’s kind Music festival held on an airstrip, EVC 2014 was much more than the outstanding genres of music it had on the dealing table.If this airstrip ever needed a tagline it should be something on the lines of Then Flying,Now Raving! After a round of adjectives and over tempting yet honest to core metaphors we would like to take you a little deeper in terms of details for EVC 14.
Stages
5 stages,60 artists was a good enough teaser to confuse and ruin decisions based on choice of music for one and all. Though the majority of the crowd stuck to the Trance/Techno stage, Live/Bass stage and the Main stage for a good part of the day. From the Bar stage to the silent parties in the campsite and the offsite after parties, there was 24/7 music around for 3 days in a row if one could live up to that.
The Trance stage had a marvel of engineered mechanism displaying the Insides of a Clock running reverse in Time while a Flames emerged on the backdrop of the Live Stage. The Main stage had everything from the confetti blasts to the laser beams which came in full swing as the evening progressed. Setting up against the drowning sun, the Carnival area turned from a lively set into a Psychedelic environment with all the Mushroom Tents along the campus coming in the picture.
Artists
We all knew that Day 1 of EVC was all a build up till the maestro Guetta took Mainstage. Until then, Lost Stories & Anish Sood provided that kick start to the EVC engine on the Mainstage, while Vir Das along with his cult band Alien Chutney took care of the Live stage against the setting sun.
Solarstone, the man behind the Pure Dance Movement had controls over the Trance Stage for a longer time as the Egyptian duo Aly & Fila missed their flights. On that note Solarstone showed a few glimpses of the much missed trance duo as he went Full Throttle with some Sneijder mixes from his Table.
Come 8.30 pm and it meant one and one thing only, the word running towards the Mainstage at EVC which if rumors are to be believed created jams all the way till Lonavla. Dropping an entrance in a very fancy way through his Seaplane over the Ambey Valley Lake, the French legend, after a few initial glitches, moved to his safe zone of EDM commercial by dropping Lovers On The Sun in the first few minutes itself. With a surprise flow from a Mix of Nirvana’s Cult Smells Like Teen Spirit, Oasis – Wonderwall, John Legend – All Of Me & Linkin park’s – Numb, Guetta was the showman with just the perfect tease of Memories in between and She Wolf towards the end.
https://soundcloud.com/showtekmusic/david-guetta-lovers-on-the-sun-showtek-remix
Sunday had many a Sick scenes as the carnival went into Overdrive with the wicked Nucleya dropping his crazy songs which crossed language barriers mixing the beats faster with every new song. Followed by Breed & Borgore, the Bass stage witnessed the most engaging audience in all days matching to Paced up beats.
https://soundcloud.com/nucleya/nucleya-benny-dayal-tamil-fever
https://soundcloud.com/glitchhop/stuck-in-a-dream-by-b-r-e-e-d
Kaiserdisco had the masses to himself in their own tunes, while Aly & Fila who couldn’t make it day before compensated for it with their Sets on the main stage just enough to pass on baton of finishing the Carnival to Third Party and the very much awaited Headliners New World Punk. It was one Set by the duo which one never wanted to come to an end.
On a Side note, KnifeParty‘s – Bonfire, Jack U’s – Take Me There & Equinox by Skrillex was a certain crowd favorite within the Camping spree.
Camping
As we said before EVC 14 was much more than a Music festival and camping around the carnival area being Surrounded by the Sahyadris was a experience to be felt more than spoken. Also staying in tents in the camping area meant access to Silent Noise parties which looked awkward from the Outside with a crowd of people dancing with Music only on their Headphones and the never ending Bonfires which had that element of Desi Tadka attached to a Indian crowd over filled with emotions. Even though quite a few workshops were cancelled, the energy around the camping was always a jolly good one. With a In house Bar & a Food court, the Night was always young for the people staying there.
Vibe
A Music Festival is usually associated with Young guns taking the March, add to the camping scenes and a period of 2-3 days meant EVC was only for the ones who were in it for the Long energetic run. Stranger Smiles had a heartening effect then the sun while a bunch of people brought the whole house down. All in all, it was an experience which one never wanted to end and see their Manic Mondays in cubicles with the Office AC.
A huge shout out to the entire team at EVC for giving us another edition of such a spectacular festival.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Review by: Akshay Naravane
Edited by: Shule Puri
Leave a Reply