February 23 2016, 13.25 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
Party monsters, dance music freaks, club kids, and college students came out in droves to Mumbai and Bengaluru pit stop of the Mad Decent Block Party over the weekend. Mad Decent, the American record label helmed by Grammy-nominated & AMA winning producer Diplo who has worked with artists like Madonna, Usher, M.I.A, Pharrell Williams, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber brought America’s largest dance music event to India for the very first time over the weekend. Diplo's label Mad Decent has the star power and curatorial credibility necessary to field a serious contender. Fans clamoured for a superlative weekend whose soundtrack ran the stylistic gamut from trap to tropical house as the venue reverberated with sounds from Saving My Life, Teach Me How To Dougie, Light It Up, Ready For Your Love, Faded amongst others. The group pushed their fascination with global dance music to the fullest while honouring their newfound pop tracks such as "Lean On," while jumping off of banisters and surfing the crowd in a giant human hamster ball. EDM fans from across India relentlessly shimmied, hula hooped and gyrated in electric energy throughout the entire 6-hour Diplo dance party amidst the kaleidoscopic ambiance.
Big Gigantic sound tracked the sunset with tropical house and a live warbling saxophone over glossy, skating melodies. American producer Giraffage sampled familiar hip-hop choruses including multiple Drake, Sean Paul, remixes to a dizzying degree of haunting synth trap. British house-music duo Gorgon City showcased their nu disco dubstep soundscape, amping the audience with their poppy remixes. Diplo led the end-of-the-summer blowout to an explosive smash with his trio Major Lazer, featuring Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. Diplo started by throwing out a bunch of swag including whistles and bandanas into the crowd. A quartet of female dancers came out and flanked the stage performing seamlessly-choreographed dance routines. Confetti cannons, water guns, flags, exotic dancers twerking and Diplo’s crowd zorbing brought an element of showmanship usually lost in live EDM. With both delirious fans and exhausted artists taking to social media afterwards to extol the weekend's festivities, the inaugural edition of Mad Decent Block Party was enshrined as a memorable experience for all involved.
Karan Singh, CEO, Sunburn says, "This is our 10th anniversary year which is a matter of celebration in itself as an intellectual property. This season we intend to deliver differentiated products for our loyal dance music patrons. Sunburn would have never been what it is today without the loyal patrons. This association with Mad Decent Block Party is the first step towards our mega celebrations."
Mad Decent has been a pioneer in introducing eclectic and fantastic regional sounds from Brazil, Angola and famously Jamaica amongst many other countries into clubs and dance floors across the world with the very first Mad Decent Block Party taking place in a street in Philadelphia, USA back in 2008. Over the last few years, Major Lazer has become a staple at all big music festivals around the world – Coachella, Lollapalooza, Pitchfork and has gained notoriety as a fun-filled stage act. A Major Lazer show is party central, whether at a concert or a festival. Expect confetti guns that shoot colourful confetti into the crowd, inflatable animals that bounce around, constant blowing of vuvuzelas and dancers twerking and shimmying their way across the stage to the sounds of moombahton, reggae, trap hip-hop and even pop. Diplo zorbing across the crowd is a classic sight at any big Major Lazer show.
LIVE.LOVE.DANCE.
The Sunburn Arena is a format created under the brand umbrella of Sunburn, a brand by Percept Live to cater to dance music enthusiasts in various cities and play host to some of the top DJs across the globe. Sunburn Arena today is one of the most awaited phenomenons across cities by the loyal dance music enthusiasts. In the past years Sunburn Arena has hosted world renowned DJs like Hardwell, Tiesto, Martin Garrix, Afrojack, Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, Swedish House Mafia, Dash Berlin and Avicii to local shores. These events are a prelude to the much-loved Sunburn Goa, one of the biggest music festivals globally. As a part of Sunburn 10th year celebrations, the Sunburn Arena will further be designed has been designed to provide the ultimate music experience.
FOLLOW THE FEELING.
About Sunburn:
Sunburn is amongst the world’s biggest music festivals. Sunburn Goa is ranked as big as Tomorrowland and Ultra Miami festival as per IMS APAC Business Report 2014. Started in 2007 as a 3 day music festival, Sunburn is an eclectic mix of music, entertainment, experiences, celebration and lifestyle that has seeded music tourism in India starting with Goa. In the past seven years of its existence, Sunburn has brought together renowned Indian and international artists to entertain hundreds of thousands of dance music lovers through its various formats that reach out to fans across India & Asia. Sunburn caters to a wide Indian and International audience and has positioned India as a prime dance festival destination to the world. Sunburn Campus, Sunburn Reload, Sunburn Arena, and Sunburn Goa, Sunburn Mumbai, and Sunburn Delhi, are some of the live event formats. Sunburn recently also launched ‘Sunburn on Air’; its weekly podcast with special EDM sets created by the world’s top EDM artists.
Sunburn has extended and diversified beyond the festival in Goa into cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai. Other formats under the Sunburn umbrella include arena gigs, club gigs, campus gigs and the newest edition called ‘Sunburn Reload’ which are specially designed and customized to cater to as many dance music fans, giving them a piece of Sunburn in their very own town. Sunburn has brought down no less than 9 of the world’s top 10 DJs over the past couple of years to India, including the likes of Swedish House Mafia, Tiesto, Avicii, Hardwell, Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Afrojack and Nicky Romero. Reaching out to all the yearning fans across the nation, Sunburn is all set to give its fans the best experience of their lifetime over and again.
About Percept Live:
Percept Live, established in the year 2012, is the subsidiary of Percept Limited. It owns and manages all the intellectual properties created in the live entertainment, sports, fashion, digital and media space. Percept has been in the ‘ideas’ business for the past 30 years and has been instrumental in creating many legendary ‘intellectual properties’ in the past for its clients. The creation of a dedicated ‘intellectual properties’ business was but a further extension to Percept’s existing knowledge and expertise in the entertainment, media and communications domain with a vision to convert path breaking innovative ideas into assets in order to create long term value for all its stakeholders.
Intellectual properties owned by Percept Live:
● Sunburn – One of the world’s biggest dance music festivals
● Bollyboom – World’s first and biggest Bollywood dance music festival
● Windsong – A drive away, camping music festival
● FLY – International live music festival cutting across multiple genres
● Fight Night –India’s first indoor boxing bouts between leading Indian and international boxers
● Champions of the World – A platform that brings together the most celebrated super icons in the arenas of sports, cinema, music, business entertainment and entrepreneurship
Percept Live is a subsidiary of Percept Limited, an entertainment, media and communications company founded in 1984. With capitalized billings of INR 28.15 billion (FY’15), Percept, today is at an enviable leadership position with a team of over 1,000 people and 62 offices across India and the Middle East.
Diplo while performing at MDBP Bengaluru
