Swedish House Mafia returns to India for 'One Last Tour'

by EVENTFAQS Bureau | Marketing | February 5, 2013 | News

SHM's last tour started on Nov. 16 in Dubai and the Delhi show took place on Nov. 18 last year. The tour was scheduled for Mumbai on Nov. 17 but got postponed to Jan. 22. Since they were returning to India, they decided to play at Bangalore as well, on Jan. 21. Held on weekdays, there was an attendance of over 20,000 at Bharatiya City in Bangalore and well over 25,000 at Mahalaxmi Race Course in Mumbai.

For Mumbai, the opening sets were played by Lost Stories, Nawed Khan and Shaan whereas in Bangalore the crowd was warmed up by Tuhin Mehta, Shaan and Rohit Barker. The Swedes made an entry after almost three hours of the opening act. Their long intro kept the fans waiting before finally appearing and kicking off their two-hour long set which saw everyone bounce with their hands in the air.

And for just over two hours, SHM provided a great audio-visual spectacle. There were lasers and fireworks on stage along with confetti colouring the night sky. The stage lighting and graphics had a great sense of music timing. At one point during their set the group also waved the Indian flag. Their popular song 'Dont You Worry Child' was played thrice over the course of the evening.

The event was powered by Underground Music Movement (UMM) in association with Absolut, Budweiser. and VH1. There were bars and F&B areas on either side of the venue, which had branding for the sponsors.

Commenting on the shows, Shailendra Singh, Joint MD, Percept Limited and Inceptor of Sunburn said: "After the phenomenal scale of events and turnout over the last couple of days, it is clear that India has well and truly arrived as a global dance music destination. The number of fans, the euphoria, the emotions, the vibe was simply incredible, unprecedented in India, and unparalleled anywhere else on the planet. We witnessed a turnout like never before and the Indian youth definitely showed the world how we party."

Adding further, Singh said: "We have created history with the successful triple city-tour of dance music power house Swedish House Mafia. 'One Last Tour' was incredible and everyone is still raving about the magical experience of these shows across the country. Sunburn in its sixth year is the only Indian entertainment property with a fan base that spreads across the country. Nothing except cricket has ever brought together so many people from such varied backgrounds in India. We have always believed that Sunburn will provide a platform to the people of the country to unite through the medium of electronic dance music and that is exactly what we witnessed. This is just a taste of things to come in 2013."

Commenting on the tour, Nikhil Chinapa, Director, Submerge, said: "When the Swedes announced they were disbanding they broke a billion hearts across the world and in India too. For all of India's dance music fans, One Last Tour was their last chance to see and hear the Swedes together. Their music has brought people of different backgrounds together in a way that's impossible to describe. The stigma attached to dance music with the misinformed perception of events being dangerous is slowly disappearing with the genre's mainstream success and audience reactions. We saw profitable and beneficial brand associations for dance music going forward as a genre."

J Davis Prosound & Lighting after their recent shows for Slayer, Carlos Santana, Above & Beyond, etc. provided services for the Bangalore show. JD used a full fledged acoustics system. A total of 24 L-Acoustics were used. The system was powered using a combination of certain amplifiers. Complete processing was done through Dolby Lake whereas system tuning was done using Smaart Live. SHM used a total of 6 Pioneer CDJs.

One Up Productions was appointed to produce the event in terms of technicals and setup, in Delhi last year. The mandate given to them was to be punctual, since they were worried about last minute glitches. They followed Percept's schedule and layout. The main challenges were coordination and logistics since there was a lot of equipment which had to be outsourced. They used new technology by bringing in kabuki and sharpies. Kabuki is used for launches and intros, where the screen collapses. Sharpies are powerful laser beams, and there were about 16 of them. They also used about 1000 square foot of LED lights and 7000 feet of barricading to make sure there was quality security.