Bringing back the vibe
It’s good old days again!
My love for dance music started over a decade ago. But things started to become more exciting when news came in of my favourite artists flying down to my city and I finally had the chance to see them play LIVE! However this excitement took a whole new meaning in 2007 when we heard about a festival that would not only host these artists but give us an experience that we had only read about until then.
Remember, we didn’t have the likes of YouTube, Facebook & Twitter back then (well at least not as popular as they are now). But what we had, was an extremely close knit community of passionate dance music fans. We had discussion forums where we met, discussed, criticised and learnt a lot about the scene. Hardly did we realise that we were the ones really building this scene. So with this, first of its kind dance music festival, we got a chance to come together as a community. Put faces to the names we had interacted with online, come together and really enjoy the music we love so much!
Fast forward to 2013 and things have changed so much. Without sounding too old in this scene or cynical, it does feel like we’ve come a long way when it comes to dance music events, particularly festivals. Having spent the time I have, being part of this, I obviously have very strong opinions about how some of these changes have been affecting the scene, in good or not so good ways. But if I can stay optimistic, then well, I would just say, we have and we are learning quite a bit in this fast paced transformation that we are witnessing.
Back in the days we were super excited to see “the international artist” who’s tunes we digged. Of course we didn’t have them come down as often as they do now. However, what we really felt good about was more than “just the artist”. It was about being with the new friends we made through music; dance together to the tunes we otherwise heard together online. Trust me, no event or festival is the same if you were to be there with none of your friends around. And in our case it was a even bigger thing as most of these were people who had become friends with from across India, through this common interest we shared around dance music. It was like going to college where we learnt about dance music and attending a gig was like attending classes. Not boring types but the fun college days types. It was an experience that can hardly be expressed in words. We had attendance; we did homework before gigs; and also review them after. We had a few inspirational teachers, but one name that will always unanimously standout is that of Nikhil Chinapa. This guy really knows his stuff. Not only is he like a walking talking encyclopaedia about dance music scene but someone who’s grounded enough to share and care for his pupils who are, each on their individual journeys in this scene. No amount of talking about him is enough.
Getting back to the point I was trying to make. They say, music can change the world because it can change people. Music comes from the heart and touches our soul. With something as emotional as this, the most important thing that we all cherished at festivals was living the moment with our loved ones and taking back happy memories! Festivals without these people, the emotions and memories is as good as a human without soul. Going back to changes I was referring to earlier, festivals today have grown into these mammoth entities which have so many artists from around the world that we wouldn’t have imagined a decade ago, but unfortunately somewhere on this path, a lot of these festivals lost what was key to the core. Nothing wrong in becoming these big entities but it’s sad to see that they’ve lost the charm and purpose of existence, well at least for me and many others I know around me, in our community. It’s too soon, but time has come to bring back that missing element in the dance music festival scene in India.
That brings me to this new festival that’s taking shape which gives me the same feeling as the good old days. VH1 SuperSonic is the name and it’s happening in Goa at Candolim Beach. Curated by Nikhil Chinapa. Brings a smile on my face, just reading that. Almost deja vu for some of us, I guess!
If you love dance music, your artists, being with your friends, living the moment, creating history and cherishing the memories for a lifetime, then Go! SuperSonic. I bet you will write as passionately about this, as I feel today about my first experience from 2007/08. Come along with me; be part of this celebration with other like minded people and you can thank me when you get back home! Actually you don’t even need to thank me, just thank god for this thing called music!
“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” — Jimi Hendrix
