Sunburn 2011- Day 3 at Candolim, Goa

And so came the last day, our calves and hamstrings outworked—not because we danced so much, but because we walked so much. From the two-wheeler parking to the venue, ground A to B to A to B to A to B…you get the point.

A long, extended stay at the Litli (till 1600) saw stellar gigs from Ankytrixx and Raveoholic. Moving onto the bigger stages- Karan Third Eye and John 00 Fleming sorted their regular pairing with high BPM fun. There’s such a loyalist audience John enjoys—it’s amazing.

On the other side Jayant Luthra (preceded by his duo with Clement) let loose some luscious progressive and deep sounds. One of the more serene sets of the fest. Ground B saw Lost Stories rip another one of their bigroom-y sets, absolutely LOUD on the Coollu’s blaring system. Nikhil Chinapa on neighbour Cubezoid was working a serious classic tribal and prog routine with Shovell…so much fun.

Coming back to the Coollu, Marco V let loose a massive outthrust of really loud bigroom and tech trance numbers, big driving energy got even more folks this side. Infected Mushroom on A had their live set going on with everything from psy to breaks to those excellent drums and their signature huge light-up Mushroom dolls added to their grandeur on the stage as they started rather well, though Amit Duvdevani’s vocals left a lot to be desired.

Albin on the other side came with more bigroom and electro—dirtier and grungier, as he jumped and danced and showed what good DJ’s ought to be like—ALIVE.

Finally we ran off to Ground B—zero puff left in our lungs as Funkagenda controlled the hell out of the Cubezoid in one of his best sets—totally nailed what such a huge crowd demanded with his House.

Axwell then came in, with 3D visuals (good gimmick but the repetitive nature of visuals got boring and you had to be dead centre to truly enjoy them) and all. Very similar set to the Madison Square Garden one that SHM played but well what do you know—the fiends lapped every bit of his awesome mashup-ability.

Right from ‘Antidote’ to ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ to ‘Calling’ to the mental mashup of Heart is King+Losing My religion+Punk that was downright sick on the opener. Axwell was packed and thank god its the Cubezoid (only place that could’ve handled him) though again the sound was patchy — He nailed it nevertheless. On the other side Coldharbour fans were kept warm — with Markus Schulz fans going gaga on the Coollu. Moguai brought and electrifying house gig on Muah while Basher followed it similarly. And Mad Maxx took Infected’s psy routine to another level.

Mat Zo in the Afterburn was a stellar gig and probably the best in the noctural version of fest.

Sunburn this year was bigger but at some point its got too big. And maybe some of us purists will find it hard to come to terms with the amount of newbies and non-musical crowds hording in but that’s axiomatic of something is such a big brand. You’ll always bring great artists Sunburn but just make sure they’ve got sound to match their finesse in the coming years.

Photo credit: Sunburn Festival; Vidhi Gandhi