Music, Mud, and Madness at Djakarta Warehouse Project 2013

It is safe to say that this year’s nearly sold-out Djakarta Warehouse Proejct (DWP) is not for the faint-hearted. Unlike past year’s festival held in the heart of Jakarta, this year (13/12) the party went a bit northern to the Eco Park venue inside Ancol. At first it seemed to be quite the idea to expand the venue’s spacing due to a higher target of audience, but once the rain started, the crowd seems to think otherwise. One word to describe the journey from the parking lot (which was surprisingly not that hard to find) to the venue took a bit of muscles to reach. The sense of navigation was under our sleeves, the fact that our shoes was stepping on mud and ankle-high puddle is definitely not a good sign, but once the DWP’s wristbands were on we realized that the party was just getting started. And all of the little hassles that we had to the entrance didn’t mean a thing as we were about to experience the best electronic dance music festival in South-East Asia

The night’s appetizer started with one of our very own local heroine, DJ Yasmin. Delivered an outrageous performance despite the technical problems, she did not fail to make us proud of the Indonesians turntable heroes. Continuing to tour other stages, Neon Jungle stage was the next stop. The facilities, the merch stands, the drink parlours and the food village found along the way were adequately suitable and just right. The choice of menu was also variative and efficient. Upon arriving at the Neon Jungle Stage, Lemaitre was halfway through their set of the night, decorated by the famed polygon art installation. The Norwegian duo played tracks from their EP The Friendly Sound and Relativity 2, including the song ‘Excuse Me’, ‘Continuum’ then closed with ‘Time to Realize’. Most of the crowd stayed and multipled to wait for the next act, Flight Facilities, and that’s when the all-night drizzle evolved into a tropical rain. Opened with ‘Foreign Language’, the crowd was even more energized with the rain’s kisses during the set and the indie electro duo’s new staging concept. Songs including ‘Claire de Lune’, ‘With You’ and minutes of Daft Punk’s ‘Doin’ It Right’ were performed that night, closed by the indie teen anthem, ‘Crave You’. Despite the rain’s intensity, the crowd was nowhere near finding a shade or a raincoat armor and kept dancing along to the beat. These party-goers really knew how to make the best of anything, like when was the last time you really danced in the rain?

 Breakbot and Zedd were scheduled to perform at the same time in opposite stages. Breakbot’s signature giant red lips decorated the stage, and performed some mixes including ‘Fantasy’ and ‘You Should Know’. The performance was then followed by Irfane and the band, playing some sultry retro tunes including ‘One Out of Two’, ‘By Your Side’ and the people’s favorite, ‘Baby, I’m Yours’. Breakbot continued with his mix of Metronomy’s ‘A Thing For Me’ and in the middle of the set, fireworks thundered the night sky as Zedd’s set across the venue was wrapping up. Zedd, the newly Grammy-nominated DJ played some of his massive hits including the radio hit, ‘Clarity’, ‘Stay the Night’, and ‘Spectrum’. As if dancing under the sky’s sprinkle wasn’t fun enough, they added fireworks, IsmayaLive really did spoil us!

Frankly, roaming from stage to stage was the least fun part of the night. Not only that the ground turned into soggy wet mud, and the fact that there were too many people with not enough walking routes, each stage transition felt like the longest. Going back to the main stage, Alesso had already started his set and performed flawlessly in front of the infinite audience. The scene was reckless at all the right places. Songs including ‘Under Control’, ‘Calling (Lose My Mind)’, ‘City of Dreams’, and ‘If I Lose Myself’ were played with maximum fortitude. Indoor staging Cosmic Station were having a blast as well, with W&W closing up their set and continued with Showtek’s unbelievably heart-stomping set. The lights, the visuals and the laser beams were the cherry on top, almost leaving the crowd in a trance. The audios were handled perfectly during most of the performances in DWP, with very slight and irrelevant glitches. As Showtek spinned through the night, the main stage was getting even more hysterical from the international star-studded line-ups, in addition to our local heroes that were even more amazing. The night peaked somewherea around 3 am at the Garudha main stage with non other than David Guetta in the flesh. The set was almost hypnotizing and justifies Guetta’s reputation in the dance and mainstream music scene. He brought a full set of the best tracks, including ‘When Love Takes Over’, ‘Titanium’, ‘Getting Over You’, ‘Memories’ and as a closing encore, ‘Play Hard’ which pretty much summed up the whole rave night-out.

Closed with more fireworks and an impeccable final set, the break of dawn has risen and it was time to end the craze, with or without hangovers. Even with all the mud madness and all the things that went wrong that night, DWP13 was worth the trouble. The euphoric scene happens only once a year and is definitely not to be missed. See you next year for an even BIGGER rave party. Eat, sleep, rave, repeat!