Romania festival review: Sunwaves, Mamaia

Romania festival review: Sunwaves, Mamaia

17 May, 2008 | 6.37AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: Ryan Keeling

You don’t earn your clubbing stripes without pulling off an entire weekend’s partying on an implausible amount of sleep.

After salvaging a few hours in bed of what was left of Saturday (post-Lee Burridge’s Herculean DJ’ing effort the night/day before) we headed back up to the Northern end of Mamaia in order to catch the final evening fling of the Sunwaves Festival.

Headlining tonight was the irrepressible Cadenza boss Luciano along with a selection of his loyal, musical subjects. 

Argenis Brito [check his tunes in the player below] was chipping in with a live set alongside label mates Rhadoo and Pedro and a smattering of hand-picked local talent.

The premise of the Sunwaves event is a three-day gathering that divides its time between a vast tent-like structure in the nighttime and the beach-side stage of Kristal Club during the daytime. Which one is serving as an after party for the other depends entirely on your own viewpoint and stamina.

The first thing that strikes us upon entering the tent is the impressive level of production with wooden floor boards ensuring a mud-free evening and a tasteful selection and lights and video screens adding some eye candy.

One myth that Beatportal is keen to dispel is that it is cheap to drink out here.

Although a beer will set you back around £2 / $4 it was not uncommon to be charged anything up to £8 / $16 for a glass of house vodka and a mixer. 

If there is such a thing as the ‘Romanian sound’ then Rhadoo and Pedro were in the thick of it as we touched down on the dancefloor.

If you catch any of the guys from RPR expect a quality selection of deep tech house and minimal with that percussive and rhythmically wonky edge that has been associated with their productions.

A lot of the hype surrounding these guys has probably been exaggerated through a thirst for something new, but at the core of this are three extremely talented DJs and producers who have a fresh approach and a genuine appetite for the scene.

Argenis Brito followed with a solid, if slightly uneventful hour-long live set before Luciano emerged to take his turn to the rapturous approval of the home fans.

The first two hours of his set existed solely in the infinitely interesting middle ground between house and techno which, when done properly, can sound so aurally satisfying.

As morning came, the light pouring into the tent was reflected in the music and as the melodies became richer, the vocals louder and vibe sunnier.

The only real problem with all this high-frequency activity was the sound system which was literally hissing its disapproval at trying to do something it wasn’t capable of.

It was quite evident the party was going to pretty much go on indefinitely, so we sneaked back to the hotel for a quick couple of hours rest in preparation for the remainder. 

The beach later that afternoon was notably quieter than on previous days as the large majority of Romanians had to head back to the towns and cities for the reality of Monday morning.

Mirko Loco of former Lazy Fat People was heading up the listed line-up for the daytime Sunwaves carry on at Kristal, although it was evident with Luciano and Zip still hanging around the afternoon’s DJ selection would be more diverse than originally advertised.

As expected, the Cadenza front man did take to the decks during the afternoon, going back-to-back with Mirko Loco, which was followed by a bonus set from Perlon boss Zip as darkness descended.

The vibe was akin to a Monday evening at DC10, Ibiza, only with a more accommodating crowd and an off-sea breeze to cool you down.

There was talk of a secret after party taking place in one of the local clubs that thankfully didn’t transpire bearing in mind that we had to leave for Bucharest first thing in the morning and the party had been going since Thursday.

The people out here have a refreshing enthusiasm to carry on and make the most out of every second they get to party, which is highly infectious and also reminds you how amazing and powerful simply dancing and listening to music can be.

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