Sunburnt at Night

The second outing of Sunburn Noida saw crowds crackling with energy and cacophonous performances by a mixed bag of artistes

A couple of decades ago,Doordarshan would beam an exercise regimen into TVs across Indian households every morning. The sight of people jumping up and down in vigorous calisthenics in front of their TV sets to tinny background music was indicative of the progress of newly globalising India. On Sunday evening,as a horde of people performed pretty much the same calisthenics to a far more sumptuous audio-visual backdrop,it was clear that the process of globalisation was complete. Kind of. Welcome to Sunburn Noida.

The 2013 edition had faced considerable criticism for its line-up this year as compared to their maiden Noida outing which saw international EDM superstars such as Afrojack and Moguai and domestic heavyweights,DJ Pearl and Ash Roy. This year,the biggest names at the festival were Australian duo Nervo,and Dutch DJ Dash Berlin,leading to several online rants that the best artistes were sent to Bangalore and Mumbai. This did not stop an excess of 6,000 fans from massing at the event,held at the Galgotia University Campus in Greater Noida. The two stages,Space Jungle and Space Station,were set up with larger-than-life decorations,but too close for comfort,leading to an overlapping of sounds.

The festival began a little after 3 pm with acts by Delhi-based NDS & Blue and Vipul on the two stages followed by Dutch trance group Rank 1 and Sunburn regular Dualist Inquiry respectively. Rank 1s techno-laced euphoric sound as well as Dualist Inquirys riff-based electronica got the still trickling-in crowd moving. Inquiry played only for an hour and gave way to Anish Sood X Lost Stories,who also shared the stage with American DJ Porter Robinson,while Chinese-American Shogun tore up the stage next door,er,100 feet away. Robinsons fast paced sound was supported by visuals of anime characters running around interspersed with explosions and fantastical cityscapes,creating massive energy in the crowd. By 8 pm crowds were perfectly set for Nervo and Dash Berlin and there was much milling around between the two stages as fans practically ran towards their preferred artiste.

We were swept in the direction of Space Jungle,where Nervo started their two-hour act almost identically similar to their set at this years Tomorrowland,one of the worlds largest EDM festivals held annually in Boom,Belgium. The crowd roared and went into a frenzy of actions similar to the jumping jack. Prasar Bharati would have been proud.

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