Sunburn – The Great Indian Music Mela
Candolim Beach, Goa, India
December 27 through 29, 2011
Perhaps the most publicized event in India – Sunburn 2011 promised the best in Electronic Dance Music to the attendees who came not only from all over the country but all around the world as well. With headliners like Gabriel & Dresden, Skazi, Infected Mushroom, Michael Woods, Markus Schulz, Above & Beyond, Axwell and more, this festival easily had the best lineup in our part of the world. Sunburn 2011 was spread over 3 days, had over 120 artists, 7 stages and a LOT of madness! Did it even come closer to an international festival experience? NO… Let’s find out why?
Day 1
Bright Sunny day with a magical Goa vibe, we leave our room to Candolim Beach, catch a bus and the conductor is shouting on top of his voice – "Sunburn Disco? Sunburn Disco? Yeh bus jaayega (this bus will go)". Oh hey, it’s a music festival not a disco o.O. We reach the venue and are told that the media centre is on ground B. 3:30 PM and the road is jam packed with cars, bikes – not an inch to move … we finally get to Gate B, get our day ribbons and get inside.
We start off at the Cubezoid Stage where Praveen Achary the Bangalorean was throwing some beautiful beach vibes. We decided to go around, the hitches start! Google free wi-fi zone had no wi-fi signal. Several bars around the ground – none serving alcohol! Why? Because they didn’t have any… they were waiting for the stock which was perhaps stuck in traffic outside. It felt that the festival was not prepared at all.
We decided to go on to the Muah Stage to catch my favourite Tuhin Mehta – wow I love his sets, he touches all the genres but with a motive to make the crowd dance, he ends up doing that every single time.
Moving on – I was really excited to see Jerome Isma-Ae, saw him earlier this year and had a lot of respect for his music – he delivered, easily the ONLY and the BEST trance set of the entire festival. To my horror I started gazing at the crowd and there was a group of 6 guys doing garba WWTTFF?! There was no energy in the crowd, perhaps most of them listening to dance music for the first time. Looking at each other’s faces wondering what to do, Jerome gave in and played Micheal Jackson’s "Beat It" and the crowd goes berserk. By this time I was SO tired, I went to search for a medical center to have a pain killer and I saw some unbelievable scenes, aunties in sarees, 10 year old kids moving here and there. A whole group of 40+ uncles with their fat bellies walking around the festival. I wondered if I’m in Bollywood Music Mela of sorts?
I rushed to see Gabriel & Dresden, perhaps the only reason I was at the festival, been hearing their music for a good 7 years. They took a whole electro house mode with tracks from James Blunt, REM, The Killers, in between they gave glimpses of their greatness … they played "Deep Dish – Say Hello". We finally got some trance treatment in the last 15 mins with tracks like "Rebound", "Sometimes They Come Without You Near", "Promises" and finally "Tracking Treasure Down". Disappointed to say the least, they were just throwing tracks from here and there, too many rock fused tracks perhaps for the crowd. Day 1 ended with sore feet and in anticipation that Day 2 will be better!
Day 2
Big day this one, a lot of quality Indian and international acts, we thought of going late so that we can beat the sunset, but then we reached the venue at 4:30 PM and were greeted by an amazing set by Nawed Khan, this Indian DJ has been a pillar of house music in India for over a decade, his set had some Deadmau5, BT, Jaytech but not at all commercial, in fact would go up and say he was the best Indian DJ on stage in the whole festival.
Then the young Prok & Fitch at the Toolroom Knights Stage, was I stunned? Together with Tocadisco, these guys perhaps had the best international debut in India, with thousands in the crowd dancing to music they have never heard before was a testament that YES, these guys knew how to make people dance. I would say Tocadisco was the better of the two since he was very interactive with the crowd. I would love to see Tocadisco and Prok & Fitch come back to India and play in clubs.
Last gig of the day, perhaps the most anticipated Above & Beyond on one stage and Micheal Woods on the other, while Micheal Woods had the latter one hour, I decided to stay behind for A&B and then move to Woods in the next hour. A&B like always took us to an emotional experience. Remember Goa is the spiritual home of Anjunabeats and the boys Tony and Jono were really emotional about coming back to India, the crowd was a good 30,000+ and wow, they were stunned to see the amount of people. 15 minutes into the set, a guy besides me asks "Yeh Above & Beyond hai kya? (Are these guys Above & Beyond?)" ASSHOOLEE, the big screen just flashed it, didn’t it? Nevertheless, they played a lovely set, specially mixed mashup "Anjunabeach vs. Home", I had wet eyes for the first time ever at a gig :’) they also played "The Thrillseekers – Last Time", had the track stuck in my head the whole week. I then decided to run to Micheal Woods, but somehow my heart said… let’s go back to A&B, by the time I was back – the last few minutes I heard "On A Good Day" and they ended up with "sun in your eyes". Satisfying day in terms of music, but the crowd just SUCKED to the core!
Day 3
Which festival on earth can boast of having options with Markus Schulz, Infected Mushroom, Axwell, Moguai as headliners – yes it was going to be one tough decision to make. We reach to catch our local favourites Lost Stories, always impressed by their music and their sets and they were making the crowds go wild, was great to see a good turnout and people who actually knew who Lost Stories were, good dance set – highlight was easily the mashup of "Adaigo For Strings" and "One", wish it was a more trancy set.
Then was time for Marco V, I became a huge fan of this man when I heard his set at Blue Frog and I pledged to see him live at an arena once in my lifetime. To my horror he was a complete disappointment. I had no clue what he was playing, on the contrary I absolutely cherished his set at Blue Frog, and there were simply no links in the tracks, big reason because there was no energy in the crowd. We then decided to move to Funkagenda where the crowd was going berserk while he was playing some Calvin Harris and SHM. Now it was decision time – Markus, Axwell or Moguai … I decided to stick to Axwell, he blew my mind the last year and with the music illiterate crowd, it was safer here.
There’s something about Sunburn that brings the best out of Axwell, 3D visuals looked spectacular with his specially prepared opening track – "Are You Ready Sunburn". And imagine the first three tracks you hear are "Heart Is King", "Losing My Religion" and Ferry’s "Punk"! Yes he just took us to a new level. Mashups, medleys and the great crowd interaction, I haven’t seen any other DJ doing it as good as him. Axwell once tweeted "There’s music and there’s Coldplay" – his love for Coldplay was evident by the number of their tracks in his set. Stellar set and a fitting end to the festival! He saved Sunburn for me and called Sunburn "the happy festival". But I’d still say Axwell 2010 >> Axwell 2011.
Verdict
Sunburn is now an experience festival; it is no longer for the one who loves EDM music! Sunburn 2011 made me realize that even if you had the best lineup of artists, it is the crowd that makes a festival, not the artists. With uncles, aunties, Jayesh, Rahul and Ayesha who came there to do Garba and check out the chicks, I am really sad to see where Sunburn is going. Getting people engaged at the stage and building cruiser bikes at the venue is not EDM, it’s ROCK or POP, promoters PLEASE don’t mix genres! All the PR communication I saw in the last few months was about the Sunburn experience and that is why we had a lakh of music illiterate crowd at Goa who just changed the whole experience, pushed DJs to play rock music and pop tracks. Sorry, but if this is the way things are going … and if I’m to hear just ONE trance set in 3 days … This was my last Sunburn
5/10
Reviewed by: Nikhil Arora
Event courtesy: Percept in association with Nikhil Chinapa
Photo Gallery
Check out the entire photo gallery from Sunburn 2011 – reproduced from the Sunburn Facebook fan page.
Brilliant review!
This sounds so disappointing man…
well described Nikhil
Couldn’t agree more!
damn right! Play munni and sheila ki jawani and they will all dance their ass off! no respect for good music
That was just so disappointing. I cannot believe Jerome had to play Beat It, that’s just so sad (hopefully he played his remix). I bet the last Sunburns that we’ve had weren’t this full of music illiterates mainly because it wasn’t hyped enough by the media. But this time all I could see on MTV was ‘come to Sunburn’, ‘biggest event in India’, ‘get engaged on stage’ and stuff like that. Sunburn should’ve stayed underground like it was now it’s all mainstream and shit. Maybe next time we might even get to see Lady Gaga in the official line up.
hahah, that was an awesome review !. I had a similar experience and was shocked to see stupid music illiterates dancing there. Very few people knew about EDM . To add on the list of artists who surprised me was also Albin Myers.He blew my mind .Axwell was great crowd puller.And dude crowed sucked too the core! ,Specially when Above&Beyond came, it was so disappointing. Infact the speakers were fucked. But it was a magical moment. I had tears in my eyes when they played “thing called love” and ” On Good Day”
All good things come to an end..if this continues…God save sunburn..I was there for 2007..and have seen the drastic change in the crowd. UMM i;e Underground Music Movement should be small, crisp and precise in-terms of its followers, if you decide to go mainstream u dilute the entire essence of the core values.
Mr. Nikhil Arora, a common observance is how confidently you write about local artists and not much about the international ones.
You seem to have a restricted knowledge base
This review is FAKE and has alot of self made up elements to it.
I have been a world wide backpacker and have attended over 50 festivals in the last 8 years.
I ask you one question : do you even have the balls to execute a festival 1/10th of this size ? the answer is NO !
The language in your review is very typical of a young adult.
Face it, there is nothing better than this in India or Maybe even Asia.
I wonder how you liked the 3D part whereas it had no proper orthographic effect. Says all for your reviews when you pointed out points which are non existent.
Talking about a random guy asking who above and beyond are..well hell yeah…let him ask..let them know about amazing experiences. I bet you grew up hearing Indian Music only to hear some Tiesto, PVD or Armin track and then becoming a so called EDM Hippy or Self Proclaimed Reviewer.
Mr. Nikhil, you are a real wannabe existent in this beautiful country where I am a guest. But its easy to say you are a kid and have no experience what so ever it seems.
Please stuff youself with a classical tune and dont forget those prawn sandwiches son !
Without any due respect, losing respect from trancehub forever,
Alan.
Haha, this is an individual opinion and written solely to bring out the true colours of the festival. Nikhil, you have done a great job than being a hommie and ass-licking the festival and its organizers, whosoever. What is being more biased? You knowing the organizers personally or just because you are a forum veteran there you speak pro-Sunburn stuff or writing exactly what happened there, without thinking twice that it will bounce back in the form of comment of pseudo-EDMers?
Going to 50 festivals won’t make a difference, if you still are afraid/conscious to outspeak the real experience than simply boasting about the homeless wanderer you have been, excuse me, but have the prostate to write an equally huge review and face the wrath of, fuck yeah, the same pseudo-EDMer that you are, Mr. Alan. Also, this is a known fact that a 10-year old trance listener will consider a 9-year old listener a wanna-be. Heck, everyone does that and sees every new trance bloomer like that. So up your mother of all trance egos. The true form of criticizing a review is not making imbecile allegations on the writer of being a wanna-be or being an immature writer, but proving wrong the claims made in the article with your oh-so-fucking-precise review. So do that than boasting about your trance medals!!!
@Souvik
After knowing your last name it appears you seem to be a Gujarathi Ethnic based Indian.
Knowing what Nikhil wrote in his review about the garba form of dance, it seems this country is in a massive mess due to the people of your age.
They would first care about differentiating peopel from Gujarat, Mumbai, delhi, bangalore etc.
I mean get a grip, its one nation not every individual is perfect. If you have been to internaitonal fests, lets say even Lolapalooza you would have found alot of Americans who never knew about some artists, but no one complains there like you faggots here do. Last year at UMF, there were a couple of brawls due to hooligans present near exits. No one gave a damn to review about all of that.
everything adds up to a Festival.Nothing is perfect at any level.
You guys need to appreciate efforts made by your own countrymen.
When I ask people here who they are or where they are from…1/10 will claim to be an Indian..the rest…Delhi , Mumbai, bangalore etc..
Try to unite and support a festival in your country…
and before all the mouth gobing, once again, have the balls to arrange something even half of that size..setting up a trance or music portal is not a big deal with the help of a few developers, designers and content writers.
Face it guys, you set a veryy bad example of India to the world with the regional mentioning here and there..
So up yours Mr. Souvik and even your mom’s…
You should write a book man!
LOL! You guys are actually replying to this troll seated in front of his computer whole day jobless, in his granny panties and trying hard to express his foolish views, because no one probably gives a fuck about him in real life?
Mr. Nikhil Arora, a common observance is how confidently you write about local artists and not much about the international ones.
You seem to have a restricted knowledge base
This review is FAKE and has alot of self made up elements to it.
I have been a world wide backpacker and have attended over 50 festivals in the last 8 years.
I ask you one question : do you even have the balls to execute a festival 1/10th of this size ? the answer is NO !
The language in your review is very typical of a young adult.
Face it, there is nothing better than this in India or Maybe even Asia.
I wonder how you liked the 3D part whereas it had no proper orthographic effect. Says all for your reviews when you pointed out points which are non existent.
Talking about a random guy asking who above and beyond are..well hell yeah…let him ask..let them know about amazing experiences. I bet you grew up hearing Indian Music only to hear some Tiesto, PVD or Armin track and then becoming a so called EDM Hippy or Self Proclaimed Reviewer.
Mr. Nikhil, you are a real wannabe existent in this beautiful country where I am a guest. But its easy to say you are a kid and have no experience what so ever it seems.
Please stuff youself with a classical tune and dont forget those prawn sandwiches son !
Without any due respect, losing respect from trancehub forever,
Alan.
PS : I dare you to moderate this post and allow it to be up…
OH Yes Alan, I did’nt even go there o.O I just faked the whole review!! I was sitting at home watching YouTube LIVE :D
Face it Nikhil, you aint good enough for reviews..better stick to your portal’s technical aspects..of which there are MASSIVE loopholes and bugs..
secondly, you are a disgrace to your own country and it’s people…
so dont try to feel ever so better :)
learn how to be an expert review writer or analyst…you are bound to receive criticism …responses with sarcasm will make you look even more like a loser nerd son…
this place sucks…im out…turned out to be fake
http://nekomimichan.org/b/src/129356030128.jpg
Lame attempt to post a Mime…up your efforts lad
Where are you from Alan?
A mime. Somebody give this guy a medal hahaha.
I would’ve debated on what you said but all you did was bash the reviewer like a 12 year old. Don’t get so upset over a review, everyone has their own personal opinions.
I was bit scared to write my name :P seeing ”Rahul” in the list of garba revelers, i hope anything i say here is not going to be take in context that i am a “dholina” tripper..!! :D :D ok back to the point .. I have been going to the festival since last three years and I can see where Nikhil is coming from and why his review is so brutal.. i do agree to many points however i can also feel what Alan is trying to say here but Alan this is Nikhil’s review he has all the rights to say and write what he felt. I am sure u were also not born in a hospital which was playing a Paul Oakenfold or Pvd remixed track.. !! and everybody has his or her time when they got introduced to something different some do it early some later.. That does not make u any superior my friend.
Nikhil my question to you is what are you afraid of or say sad/angry about the music becoming commercial or the festival becoming commercial in a very cheap way,? We can have a better festival for sure but no-one can stop the music being commercial. it is just going to add on more and more people everyday this is the POWER of music and so its CURSE ,, pick up any genre and they all have faced the same. SO probably all we can do is attend as many gigs as possible which are not marketed a lot (cant blame the organizers they want to earn money so they got to do things but i agree this year sunburn just pushed it too much).
BTW.. The sets played by Infected, Janux, laughing budha, Ankytrixx, Skazi and Markus were superrbb i loved it..!! The crowd was also good except for Infected and Markus and we know why ..!!?
Not trying to be superior my friend but I appreciate the politeness in your post. Agree it’s Nikhil’s review but its badly biased..and not totally true..I as a critic disagree and he should have the understanding of not being sarcastic back in reply being a review writer…shows the amateur qualities he has got to run this portal..
He runs a portal and not a festival so he thinks everything can be done non commercially..
i am in no way associated with sunburn and its organisers. It just ticks me when people like him behave in a manner against the only existent mass fest in his own country…
Good points mentioned though Rahul :)
I completely agree to what you trying to say friend. The points you just mentioned above are good and i must say this time around you framed it quite well too. I really respect the fact that you stood up and pointed out things which probably Nikhil should have taken care of while writing his review specially about a festival like sunburn which is the first of its kind in our country…!! if you give me your email id i shall share other reviews with you which were more genuine which i am sure u would like to read. :) ;)
What a review.. I couldn’t agree more ,,, it wouldn’t have been this bad if it wasn’t so hyped by the media : But this time all I could see on MTV was ‘come to Sunburn’, ‘biggest event in India’, ‘get engaged on stage’I mean if you wanna get engaged go to a matrimonial site you moron ??!!! The crowd was clearly illiterate , the music had more rock and pop tracks than trance …. the festival wasnt organised well if you hype about it so much you atleast live up to the expectations of the people. Sunburn was supposed to be the biggest EDM festival in Asia but now its just a very BIG MELA in Asia . I 2would suggest dont get big Artist next year and just embarrass them and make them play ROCK just because that’s the Crowd this Festival attract. Better you Bring AKON and yeah like the GUY in the DNA review of sunburn Mr Garodia said ” What is the big deal? There aren’t even lyrics.They could have had at least one Bollywood
singer perform. Kuchh toh mazaa aata Sonu Nigam Even Shreya Ghoshal”
I could only enjoy Markus , Skazi Infected and Jerome…
I still wont give up and hopefully 2012 will be much better !!
I disagree with your review of G&D. If you have been their fan for so many year, then you would know that their tracklist has been their standard for more than 3 months now.
Were you expecting them to change the whole set for Sunburn..or for you ?!
I stopped reading your review right after that point.
Agreed the event was badly organized and people were illiterate, but you don’t have the right perception to write a review either.
Agreed.
I have read many reviews about alot of fests and events, etc. with criticism. They all seem to have direction.
Nikhil seems to be a nerd bloke who went on the free will to write a review thinking he would get appraisals from his community here…
Face it Nikhil, this link is worth killing off..thats how much the review sucks…cause it’s all based for YOURSELF…not a community as a whole…better write this one on your facebook notes…
I am from Ontorio and I travel around due to the nature of my work. Currently at Mumbai, India.
I have beena regular follower of your portal but now its all doom…