Sunburnt in India: Raving on the Goan coast during Sunburn’s 8th Season
The ground crunches beneath our feet as we step foot onto Vagator Beach, site of the 8th season of Sunburn Music Festival.
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
A sharp, but welcome, deparature from its former home in Candolim, Asia’s largest music festival’s new home is far more idyllic. The red clay landscape sizzles under the Indian sun. It’s a scorching 90 degrees on Vagator Beach — a piece of the Goan coast flanked on two sides by the Arabian sea. Yet somehow, on the other side of the world the festival feels strangely familiar. The crowd is friendly, exhilarated by every interaction. The entire experience is reminiscent of the early festival boom in the States — a time when the community and music took precedence over “getting turnt up.”
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
During the day fans spent less time dancing and more time enjoying the many amenities that the festival has to offer. Rather than spend a majority of its budget on booking fees, Shailendra Singh and the Sunburn team strike a 50/50 split between the experience and the music. This focus is at work in every aspect of the fest. There’s an igloo that provides a sub-freezing cool down, mechanical bulls, a zorb and volleyball court, bungee-jumping, rock climbing and much more scattered throughout the festival grounds.
The Indian EDM scene is still in its infancy, having only truly exploded in the past 3 years. Before then it was Psytrance and not much more, but, with the youngest population on the planet, India’s emergning market is rife with opportunity – and thirsty for everything that EDM has to offer.
A passionate people, Indian dance fans are still in the early stages of their electronic evolution.
Side stages with Damian Lazarus were sparsely populated, but the main stage crowd rivaled that of Tomorrowland. In line with their hyper vibrant Bollywood productions, the Indian fanbase is drawn to the over-the-top production value that defines main stage EDM. The larger the spectacle the better and its that sort of unpretentious consumption and raw excitement that made the entire experience so memorable.
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
Like their American counterparts, Indian fans have fallen hopelessly in love with anything built on a four-to-the-floor beat, but unlike their peers back in the US, the majority of the crowd is still there for one sole purpose; to have fun. You won’t find any snooty know-it-alls scoffing at the main stage lineup, nor will you find cro-mags on bad molly highs throwing elbows during Dannic.
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
While the schism in electronic music in the US is growing between the popular and the passionate, the Indian dance scene has (thankfully) yet to evolve past its love for the music. They may worship Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike for the festival experience but those same fans are just as excited to see Sasha afterhours.
The music and the experience is all they are after.
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
The biggest and best main stage talent found themselves inked on the lineup; Sander Van Doorn closed out day one, Knife Party followed Krewella on Day 2’s main stage and Dannic and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike spent the festivals final 2 1/2 hours throwing one of the biggest parties in Asia. Elsewhere guys like Paul Oakenfold and Sasha were defining the experiences for the diehard fans in the crowd.
Photo Credit: RUDGR.com
The Indian talent impressed as well, including a live drum n bass outfit called Oxygen 7, who’s all original, all live performance included two guitars, a singer/keyboard player, and a drummer who’s limbs magically kept up with the blistering rhythms.
Already a wildly popular brand and event series, Sunburn has developed a culture of well-educated, well-spoken, and well-intended fans who spread word of their experiences throughout the country. At a Sunburn event fan’s primary purpose is to forget about the world around them; to truly lose themselves in the music.
It’s a concept that seems to have gotten lost at many of the top tier US festivals — but it is with this in mind that Sunburn truly shines.