Will the real trance lover please stand up?

On Day 2 of the Sunburn festival in Goa last week, as British DJ Pete Tong played his set, a 20-something guy stumbled over, and asked for a light. “Which city?” he slurred. “Mumbai,” I said. “Ah, I’m from Delhi,” he replied, a hint of approval in his voice. Then he said, “Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, that’s where most people here are from.” I told him there were people from other Indian cities too. “Are there? But, what would they do at a trance music festival?”

My drunk friend from Delhi had clearly not met the boys from Raipur. I ran into Akshay and his group of friends on the train to Goa. Akshay had been visiting Sunburn since 2009. “I was here when Armin van Buuren played, and during Paul van Dyk, too,” he said. Van Dyk’s name elicited some ‘oooh’s from the group.
“We’ve been planning the trip for six months now. It’s India’s biggest party man,” said Akshay’s friend, Navin. He had “read extensively” about Sunburn and the artists online. His friends hadn’t bothered. “Who cares. We just want to party,” they said.
Sunburn, the annual festival organised in Goa since 2007, has managed to create quite a flutter. Some of the world’s top DJs have headlined the event over the past five years, many of them playing in India for the first time.

However, while Sunburn attracts a large number of trance music lovers from abroad and India, there are many who just want to have a wild time. I met people who had probably never heard the musicians performing at the fest before, and weren’t trance aficionados otherwise, but turned into ‘fans’ overnight. It's like never having listened to the tabla, but being excited for a Zakir Hussain concert.

Like Jaideep Raichu from Manipur. Raichu and his friends are heavily into rock music, he told me. They often travel to Kolkata and other north eastern cities for concerts. “On the first day, I really couldn’t relate to people swaying to these sounds. Don’t get me wrong, but this is not really ‘music’,” says Raichu. However, the concoction of alcohol and that-which-must-not-be-named, with the infectious enthusiasm among the crowds, ensured Raichu gave the DJs a chance on day 2. “It does grow on you. I particularly enjoyed the tracks played by Skazi and Above & Beyond.”  

Then there was the bunch from Ahmedabad. Jimit Garodia came partying to Goa with around 20 cousins. Sticking to beer and the theplas his mom packed for them for the trip, Garodia says he decided to come to Sunburn only after reaching Goa. “A lot of people from my hotel were heading here.” The experience left Garodia baffled. “What is the big deal? There aren’t even lyrics.” His friend chipped in, “They could have had at least one Bollywood

singer perform. Kuchh toh mazaa aata.” “Sonu Nigam,” Garodia nodded. “Even Shreya Ghoshal,” said his friend. What about Himesh, I was tempted to ask, but refrained.

Ponty Mukherjee from Kolkata, however, was among the rare, ecstatic trance music fans there. “I listen to Axwell (who headlined the festival this year) and Infected Mushroom all the time. Trance is life, dude,” he told me. For him, Sunburn is the once-a-year opportunity to listen to the genre of music he’s passionate about, live. “Trance in India is shit. So, when some of the world’s best DJs are playing, who’d want to miss? But most guys here don’t even know what they are listening to,” he said with some arrogance.

Nothing, however, prepared me to meet Ganesh Dotre, 41. During a performance, I spotted a middle-aged guy wearing sneakers and trousers with his shirt tucked in. He told me he worked for the one of the event’s sponsors and had got a free pass. I asked him what his experience had been like, and he looked at me expressionless. Suddenly, he screamed, “Yeh kya ho raha hai aaj kal ke youngsters ko? Dharam bhrasht kar dega yeh music hamara.” He continued, “Jab national anthem bajega, toh kya yeh sab khade honge? Nahin. Par dekho, kaise bandaron ki tarah naach rahe hain is music par.” Dotre, clearly, wasn’t sold on the Sunburn experience.