ON THE FL
ON THE FLOOR
Double trouble!
After 12 years of throwing outdoor beach parties, Singapore’s Zoukout switched from a one-day event to a two-day extravaganza. DJ Mag went along for the ride…
“S
ingapore, are you ready to f**cking paaaartaaay?” screams Hardwell into the mic. Nearly every single hand in the
10,000-strong crowd squished into the area in front of the Moon stage for the first night of the Zoukout festival — on the beach on Singapore’s Sentosa island — shoots into the air. People clamber on each other’s shoulders and fireworks explode on the front of the stage just as Hardwell drops Avicii’s ‘Fade Into Darkness’. A girl in a bikini top and shorts climbs on a guy’s shoulders and holds up a banner saying ‘go hard or go home’. It could be the catch-all mission statement for the night.
It’s 11pm and stars are twinkling in an inky-black, cloud-free sky but the banner-waving girl isn’t the only one in swimwear. Almost half of the 20,000 or so people at this festival are wearing beach outfits of some description. Lots of them are barefoot, the rest are wearing flip-flops. There’s quite a few wandering around in blow-up, pink flamingo hats and the ratio of glo-sticks to ravers is at least two to one. The thing is, it might be early December, but here in Singapore, fast-approaching midnight, it’s 30 degrees, with a humidity of nearly 90%. “We’re only 1 degree above the equator,” explains festival organiser and Zouk owner Lincoln Cheng. “The weather’s always like this.” Zoukout isn’t a new thing, it’s been happening every year for the past 12. What is new this year, is that they’re holding the festival across two nights instead of one. And the location — the tiny island of Sentosa, just a short bridge-hop from Singapore’s mainland (where
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Lincoln’s Zouk club is) — is hosting an influx of ravers from all over South East Asia, Australia, America and Europe for a whole weekend, instead of just one night. A sizeable chunk of those are fist-punching the air and stomping on the sand for Hardwell’s set. While the 24-year-old Dutch DJ cleverly laces an acapella of Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ over a pumping, bass-heavy slice of progressive house, on the second stage (the main is called Moon, the other one Star), Malaysian DJ/ production duo Goldfish & Blink are pumping out similarly proggy 4/4 beats to a slightly smaller crowd. “I can’t believe we’re DJing at the same time as Hardwell,” Blink says, while Goldfish attends to the mix. “I really wanted to hear him play.”
Blink & Goldfish are residents at Zouk in Kuala Lumpur, a franchise of the original. And, Blink says, their gig tonight is the first time Zoukout has had Malaysian DJs play on its line-up. While they play, percussionist Sudha (the long-serving Faithless drummer) is resting her hands after her stint playing bongos, congas and all manner of other percussion instruments alongside house DJ Hong, who’s a resident jock in Singapore. “Zoukout’s a lot less trancey this year,” she says. “It’s really interesting because the crowd love it just as much as ever.” Sudha has played at Zoukout for the past couple of years. She is, she says, “excited about seeing Major Lazer tonight”. And no sooner has she uttered their name than they bustle past for their set on the Star stage. “We’re a dancehall reggae soundsystem,” shouts Diplo into the mic. “C’mon Singapore!” Diplo and Jillionaire are wearing suits. Walshy Fire is wearing a skip-cap that says ‘Lord’ and he’s holding the mic as he jumps up on a speaker stack. The two sassy
Hardwell
Major Lazer lady dancers are wearing heavy black boots and lurid underwear, covered over with army shirts. The crowd is, at first, not quite sure what to make of this motley crew. Especially when they start mashing up tracks such as their own ‘Pon De Floor’ into carved-up slices of Beenie Man’s ‘Who Am I?’ and Harry Belafonte/
Major Lazer
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