Book chronicles Sunburn festival's journey

New Delhi: It is said that the language of music is universal but this was not on the mind of the creators of what is arguably Asia's biggest electronic dance music (EDM) festival - Sunburn. The foundation of this annual music pilgrimage was to foresee what youth would like to hear in the coming years.

The behind the scene revelations and background confessions of the festival have been recollected and relived by Shailendra Singh, joint managing director of Percept, an entertainment and media communications firm, in his new book "The True Story of Sunburn".

While 49-year-old Singh has chronicled the journey of this popular festival, he admits that the main aim of the book is to "inspire youngsters to understand the potential of an idea”.

"In early 2000, we were wondering what is the next big thing that would strike a chord with Indians, majorly youngsters and what would they like to consume. SO we thought of doing something in music," Singh told IANS in an interview on the phone from Mumbai.

"We knew that live entertainment is going to be a necessity for the youth. But the problem is that Indians are not serious about anything. So when we thought of music we knew we wanted music without lyrics because not everyone can enjoy music they don't understand," he added.

This is why Percet decided to invest their money in EDM and the festival born in 2007. It has been growing stronger ever since.

"EDM was the most logical platform to multiply and grow," Singh said.

"Especially in India, where people speak different languages, we thought it was best to do something universal," he added.

The book also touches upon the major controversy that rocked the festival in 2013 when Viacom 18 decided to organise similar music festival, "VH1 Supersonic" on the same dates as Sunburn - Dec 27-29. The latter festival is spearheaded by popular VJ and DJ Nikhil Chinapa, who had left Sunburn in the same year because of differences.

The duel between the two music festivals had created quite a stir in the music industry.

"I have questioned their intentions in this book. Couldn't they find any other city or any other dates to hold the (Supersonic) festival," asked Singh.

"Every year we host the festival on same dates because we don't want affect the business of the local people (Christmas and New Year's Eve). What in fact we do is bring more traffic to the state," he added.

Singh pointed out he has mentioned this ugly fight in the book is to "tell youngsters that nothing will come without challenges. One has to have a goal in sight, otherwise obstacles will always be there to discourage you."