Boom festival: Rehearsing the Future. Music and the Prefiguration of Change

(1)

Boom festival | Rehearsing the Future

Music and the Prefiguration of Change

by Saul Roosendaal 5930057 Master’s thesis Musicology August 2016 supervised by dr. Barbara Titus University of Amsterdam

(2)

2

Boom festival | Rehearsing the future

Foreword

In the summer of 2014, I planned to go to Boom, a psytrance festival I knew virtually nothing about. I went there with some friends, some of whom had already gone before and had spoken admiringly about its positive energy, its spectacular art and music, the sizzling weather, and the sustainability agenda embedded in the festival’s premises. My curiosity was awakened, and I decided to go. I still had to write my master’s thesis, and borne out the strong desire to combine the subjects of my academic studies with my personal quests, I thought why not combine them. This paper is the result of that research, one that, to stay in line with some of the vocabulary used, adds to the ensemble that makes up the various levels of the festival and its many intense experiences.

The project has been a long and arduous journey, but a very personal one that brought great satisfaction and many valuable lessons. As I hope to make clear, the participatory nature of the festival requires active engagement, allowing for such personal development. Attentive readers will surely notice my unabashed appreciation of the festival, which I consciously include because of the fact that I am taking part by musicking, as any other visiting the festival, being first and foremost a participant. I dedicate this to all Boomers, and to all others who inherited the hippie ideals of love and peace; who believe in change, starting from within and growing from the small. It corresponds to the prefigurative mode in which Boom festival operates to contribute to creating awareness and change. And it all began with coming together and celebrating, which remains preserved at a core it has never lost.

(4)

4

Introduction

BOOM FESTIVAL, Portugal, is one of the world’s leading psytrance (psychedelic trance) festivals, held biennially since 1997. At Boom, music is always everywhere, albeit in the background. It is a starting point from which other things happen, actions take place, and in fact the festival (and all it entails) was founded around it. There are various kinds of music at the festival, featuring different music stages and accompanying various activities, but psytrance forms the overwhelming centre of attention. The Dance Temple, Boom’s main stage featuring only psytrance, can be heard in most places at all times, save for a few afternoon hours of rest. It remains, literally and figuratively, at the centre of the festival, which has grown and expanded. Nowadays it is but one element of the festival, still binding other things together by its sheer omnipresence. With academic research of Electronic Dance Music Cultures (EDMCs) still in its infancy, this paper is a venture into the curious world of psytrance and its culture.

The festival is full of activities, and far more than music and dance alone, Boom offers a full program of lectures, workshops and rituals of all kinds. In addition, it has an extensive environmental program that demonstrates and educates sustainability on different levels. Leisure studies scholar Erin Sharpe explains how leisure activities can create a context that may contribute to potential social change, as they ‘provide opportunities for individuals to resist and rewrite the dominant cultural narratives that shape their lives,’ where leisure is being seen as ‘a space for collective organizing to address social problems’ (Sharpe 2008: 218). Accordingly, following the objective of social sustainability, Boom explicitly states its aim to ‘develop a credible alternative to the models of mainstream culture’ (http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2014/environment/mission-awards/), thoroughly explored in Chapter 2.

At the festival, all these cultural expressions are intimately linked. The festival experience is a whole experience, with all of its individual segments working together as an ensemble, as will be explored in more detail in the first chapter. All these things are continuously shared with mostly like-minded people who, having different objectives, still share similar experiences. Researchers have asserted that the festival experience can have a lasting positive impact and change people’s lives (Packer & Ballantyne 2011: 168-170), and in all, the festival provides a place that can ‘transform the everyday space of the familiar and mundane to one that is rather otherworldly and spiritually uplifting, even if the jollity and improvement are serious stuff’ (Waterman 1998: 58). This does not mean that the festival

(5)

5

spirit and everyday life are complete opposites, on the contrary. Transformational festivals (see Chapter 1) like Boom, especially, transcend such a distinction. As I will demonstrate, the festival is something that can transcend everyday life, and may ultimately have the power to transform it.

When I first set out to write this thesis, I centred on psytrance music and its role at Boom festival. Gradually, the focus on the music alone did not give me the answers I was looking for. The close relationship of psytrance culture to its music makes it necessary to understand that culture, and culture in a more general sense, in order to understand the musical genre. Therefore, out of necessity my view broadened to include the cultural context of the psytrance scene, and Boom in particular.

Indeed, if we consider the musical genre and its culture together, the connections between aesthetics, style and social elements become more obvious, and the ways in which they are linked are more intricate than expected or acknowledged until that point. Popular music scholar Georgina Born argues how music ‘in itself’ virtually doesn’t exist, as all music is produced, mediated and consumed in a social context that may be considered immanent to the music in itself. She argues for stronger academic interactions, understanding music through culture. ‘By “music as culture” in this broad sense,’ she says, ‘I refer to the ensemble or constellation of practices, beliefs, communications, social relations, institutions and technologies through which a particular music is experienced, and has meaning’ (Born 1990: 211). She further stresses the importance of ‘the multitextuality of music-as-culture; and the need to analyse its particular forms […] as an ensemble’ (Born 1990: 217).

Nearly a decade later, musicologist Christopher Small takes a step further, deploring how for a long time music has been seen as a thing, and how the presumed autonomous ‘thingness’ of works of music, and of art in general, values not the creative aspect of art, but the resulting object (Small 1998: 4). This problematic view requires a reinterpretation of the concept of music, as its fundamental nature and meaning, Small argues, ‘lie not in objects, not in musical works at all, but in action, in what people do. It is only by understanding what people do as they take part in a musical act we can hope to understand its nature and the function it fulfils in human life’ (Small 1998: 8). The term music has been ascribed to many different kinds of settings, actions, and ways of organising sounds into meanings. To Small,

the meaning of music, or indeed its function, cannot be subtracted from any of them, hence

the preference for the plural—musics. He even goes so far as to say that ‘There is no such thing as music’ (Small 1998: 2). Instead, he employs the verb musicking to take in the entire

(6)

6

set of relationships that constitutes a musical experience, demonstrating how music’s primary meanings are indeed very social, which is fundamental to an understanding of the activity called music.

In recent years, the ideas of Born and Small gained impetus, and the call for a more inclusive approach has led to the consolidation of a movement called Cultural Musicology, originated by music scholar Wim van der Meer, who appropriates the term from colloquial usage throughout the 20th century. The direction taken by Cultural Musicology favours a more detailed approach, and Van der Meer set out to situate all musical experiences in a wider social and political context. Musicologist Nicholas Cook similarly builds on the ideas developed by Born and others, using the term Relational Musicology, and seeing the encounter between different elements that act together in, we might say, by analogy to Born, an ensemble, as critical. Considering the interrelatedness of the elements of such an ensemble, and by extension of all participants in a musical event, is ‘an enacting of intersubjectivity and social relationship[s] in which each is dependent upon the other, and in which there may be no absolutes specifiable outside the context of performance interaction: it is in this sense that the performance even of fixed texts can be understood as an act of collective improvisation’ (Cook 2012: 195-6).

The insistence on using the concept of ensemble as a tool, without taking the metaphor too overtly literally, evokes connotations with the performance of a musical ensemble. Usually consisting of several sections, each with its own particular instruments as performers, none is more important than the others, instead creating musical meaning as a whole. This integrating approach seems adequate in the analysis of Boom festival. The aesthetic experience as a whole, as with popular music, is integral to the musical experience with an event so complexly constructed as a festival, which is multitextual by definition—we can even see Boom as an ensemble itself.

With the concepts of the ensemble and musicking at hand, this paper is an exploration of the tactics, styles, and aesthetics of Boom, investigating in broad currents what happens at the festival. From different perspectives, the festival can be seen as a music festival, as cultural politics, or with a focus on its vast set of environmental aspects. Recognising its ambitious outlook, I investigate how these different levels of musical experience at the festival are connected and how they work together in a musicking ensemble, asking, In what ways can

Boom contribute to change, challenging dominant perceptions in public opinion and experience? How does this affect its visitors, both during the festival itself and on the

(7)

7

long term? And how does the position of music in the ensemble interact with the other levels? To understand these questions and to answer them, I shall analyse a number of the

levels of the ensemble in detail, recombining them in the end. In subsequent chapters, I consider the academic contextualisation of music and culture, including an evaluation of recent musicological debate. Next, I consider the interaction with the local and global environments in which the music festival has become, and now operates, discussing music’s transformative powers in the context of an event. Finally, I examine what its own policies, goals and purposes are, and in which ways the public is addressed and involved, including this paper and myself.

Situating Boom festival in its wider local and global context, I will focus on some of the most prominent themes of the music festival, such as cultural politics and visitor participation, raising questions about the effects of the event on musical experience, the environment and, ultimately, individuals’ lives. Following Small’s concept of musicking, connections can be made on various levels, including historical links to music festivals and hippie gatherings, and connections to self-sustainable, ecofriendly initiatives. As a strongly participatory event, Boom is created by its visitors, and thus part of this thesis is about people and their experiences when visiting the festival.

Concerning my own position, I also consider myself principally to be a visitor, or rather participant at the festival. Graham St John’s and Chiara Baldini’s gathering of information comes from ‘participation and research experience within psytrance’, they claim to be no ‘white-coat-wearing or clipboard-clutching researchers, and have both had a passionate though rational involvement with the event and its wider culture’ (St John & Baldini 2012: 521-2). They were, however, more formally involved, by way of giving lectures in the Liminal Village. I hover somewhere in the liminal zone between them and Erin Sharpe who, on the other end of the spectrum, started out more as an outsider. It only became clear to her during her involvement in the Hillside festival that, besides her planned interviews with organisation officials, a further exchange of information with people on different levels would infuse and enrich her study. ‘It became apparent that a more accurate boundary was at the level of the community of individuals (often referred to as “Hillsiders”) who were interested, involved, and committed to the festival’ (Sharpe 2008: 221).

It is my belief that researchers cannot take an objective outside position that guarantees an objective view on things. Certainly, my experience as researcher or musicologist may vary considerably from that of a non-expert. Yet, I find any and all experiences equally important and valuable for consideration, including my own, particularly

(8)

8

given the circumstances of Boom’s ‘being One’ philosophy, the flexible positions of participants at the festival, and the conscious treatment of all as equal. Having pen and paper on me at all times, I spoke to many people about their reasons for coming, motivations, and experiences. Still more often, I did not reveal my position (of doing research for this thesis), so as not to influence any behaviour or response. As cultural and social behaviours are often performed without reflection on it, asking about them may not always be the best option (Blommaert & Dong 2006: 3). With my knowledge of and experience with psytrance, prior to visiting Boom, being very limited, I attempted to set my preliminary research aside, and during the festival my approach was very much to just take it as it came.

My research, including conducting field research during a trip to the festival in August 2014, aims to argue for complex, inclusive interpretations of experiences, including my own observations and private conversations and incorporating literature from the disciplines of musicology, human geography, leisure sciences, anthropology and sociology. Coloured by my personal experiences, I want to render the position of myself as researcher transparent. Without a specific academic approach, my presence at the festival and my communication with the people there was colloquial. This paper, then, is an effort to tackle the complexities of Boom by seeing with my own eyes through participant observation. In an attempt to understand the relations between music as culture, the music festival, integrating the seemingly opposite ends of the local and the global, the organic and the digital, weaving them together, with other more complex levels of the festival, into an ensemble. In doing so, I ultimately hope to show how Boom exploits the possibilities of music to make a difference in socio-political conceptions and cultural experiences.

(9)

9

1. A Transformational Festival

This chapter gives a general introduction to the festival and its origins, discussing its contextualisation within psytrance and the festival scene. Boom began around 1991 as regularly occurring open air parties between dance enthusiasts coming together to celebrate under the full moon in the forests of southern Portugal. It started with around 1500 people, but within a few years, it was growing larger, with 6000 people annually enjoying themselves in an increasingly successful gathering. To deal with the popularity growing too fast, a gap year was introduced in 1999, the festival now being held only every two years. The festival grows more popular with every edition, being sold out for the first time in 2014 (and again in 2016). The festival area, called the Boomland, covers over 150 ha of land, and includes four music stages, among which the central Dance Temple, exclusively for psytrance. It also includes a Healing Area, a space for yoga, therapies and workshops; a Sacred Fire area, an enchanted forest full of art installations; the Liminal Village, a discussion and lecture centre; and the Visionary Art Museum, with psychedelic art works and shows. Furthermore, there is a flea market, several chai shops, restaurants and bars, and gardens and art installations spread all over the Boomland. In the 2014 edition, 1000 workers were employed in pre-production, as well as over 800 performing artists, with 40,000 – 50,000 (estimates vary) visitors attending (http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2014/tickets/boom-2014-tickets-info/).

Through the music and the site, and aided by the use of psychoactive substances, psytrance culture has a distinctive psychedelic mysticism that taps into ancient spiritualities and religions. It intends to mark a transition into a new world order, while maintaining a close relation to the earth and all she has to share. Offering seven days of splendid party, full of great weather, music and psychedelics, this is called a transformational festival, which, like Australian doofs, has the festival spirit at its core, a prevalence of electronic music, spirituality, and goes to great lengths to ensure connections to humanitarian and sustainability causes, creating consciousness.

1.1 Psytrance and Celebration

Boom is based on psytrance (psychedelic trance), up-tempo Electronic Dance Music (EDM) that includes various musical styles and acts, characterised by a fast, pounding bass (typically between 140 – 150 BPM) with steadily propelling sixteenths, interlaced with distorted sound effects, blurps, and echoes scattered around in a multitude of psychedelic auditory movements. Psytrance has its roots in Goa, India, an international hub of hippie culture since

(10)

10

the 1960s with influx from different countries and cultures—Diogo Ruivo and Pedro Carvalho (organisers of Boom) met there as children, tells Graham St John, an authority on psytrance and rave culture (St John 2014: 55). In Goa, psychedelic hedonism came under the influence of EDM flooding in from Europe’s rave scene in the 1980s, introducing developments in production techniques capable of producing the strange psychedelic effects that would become its decisive aesthetics, leading to the emergence of a new spirited music and scene initially called Goa trance (Greener & Hollands 2006: 395).

The distinctive 1980s MIDI sound and complex layering gradually gave way to a drier and cleaner, more digital, techno-oriented sound towards the end of the 1990s. What started out as an amateur, underground music scene grew into the worldwide phenomenon we now call psytrance. Today, the style is becoming increasingly well-known around the world, with blossoming scenes in for instance Israel, Brazil, and Japan, including various offshoots in the form of substyles like progressive, full-on, darkpsy, and psybient (for a genealogy, see http://i.imgur.com/5IIM9.jpg). Besides many smaller underground parties, one-day or several-day psytrance events occur on a weekly basis around the globe during the summer months (for more information, see http://www.psybient.org/love/trance-festivals-list-calendar/#).

Nevertheless, psytrance retains some of its underground alternative spirit and many characteristics of its hippie heritage, and it continues to be associated with alternative modes of thinking and ways of living. According to contemporary religion professor Christopher Partridge, psytrance marks the crossover from free festivals into rave culture (Partridge 2006: 55-6). His article traces the continuity between the free festivals of the sixties and seventies through rave culture as it emerged in the 1980s. Psychedelics play their part, as well as the roots in festival culture do. The merge of the free festivals of the sixties and seventies continued not only the scene but also ‘a particular blend of ideologies and spiritualities. The Pagan, punk, anarchic, hippie values of the former, began to shape the latter’ (Partridge 2006: 52, see there for further discussion).

Festivals are traditionally meant for celebration of shared values and identities and to articulate various ‘social, religious, ethnic, national linguistic or historic bonds’ (Bennett et al. 2014: 1). In other words, the community’s identity values are celebrated through the festival (Waterman 1998: 57). Once meant to establish and reinvigorate one shared identity, the forms and functions of the festival now become a celebration of difference. ‘The contemporary festival therefore becomes a potential site for representing, encountering, incorporating and researching aspects of cultural difference’ (Bennett et al. 2014: 1). As such, besides the carefree option for listening to music in beautiful settings, the festival provides, as will be

(11)

11

explored in more depth in the next chapter, many opportunities for the exposure of cultural difference. There is space for radical self-expression or political discussion, creating a platform for alternative approaches to various subjects, and allowing for experimentation on a wider scale. The temporal and spatial framing of a festival and its alternative social arrangements have lent it opportunities to overturn the established order and dominant social relations, and in fact, ‘festivals have also been linked to wider movements for social change’ (Sharpe 2008: 219).

The festival thus provides the ideal environment for psytrance. This is where the scene thrives best, as the celebration of different cultures and religions is intrinsic to the psytrance way of living. In general, raves—barely planned, free-of-charge parties where considerable crowds gather to dance on EDM—retain that impromptu heritage from their predecessors. A preference for alternative venues, like open places in the woods, deserted areas, industrial zones, and squats, as well as the continued connections to squatters, festival-goers and other alternative and open-minded folks, can be clearly traced to the abandoned or reclaimed open places of the free festivals of the 1960s and 1970s. It shares this trait with other EDMCs, such as the teknivals associated with tekno music. However, what sets psytrance apart from the other styles ‘with which it otherwise shares music production and performance techniques’, is a decidedly psychedelic mysticism (St John & Baldini 2012: 522).

The Goa connection infused the movement with Buddhist and Hinduist elements, and as Partridge described it, ‘Psychedelic festival culture was transformed into Easternised psychedelic rave culture’ (Partridge 2006: 46). New Age spiritual awareness from the sixties onwards also led to a renewed interest in pre-Roman and pre-Christian cultures and an emphasis on local folklores. Hence, regional psytrance scenes focus on ancient local traditions, like Aboriginals in Australia and Native Americans in North America. The connections to ancient cultures and religions are most eloquently argued by avid proponent of psychedelics and psycademic guru Terence McKenna, in the self-evidently titled The Archaic

Revival (1991). According to McKenna, much of the rave culture’s connections to ancient

cultures and religions are indebted to its hippie forbearers, with which Partridge agrees. In music, this is reflected by the inclusion of initially eastern, and later other local instruments, such as the didgeridoo (Partridge 2006: 48-9). Dance continues to be seen as a sacred act, as explained by psytrance act Insectoid, in the accompanying booklet to their 1997 album Sacred Sites: ‘the dance space in trance-dance parties is a sacred space. It is a form of meditative collective spiritual worship. It is a reconnection with the elemental, primordial rhythms of organic, cosmic life force’ (quoted in Partridge 2006: 48). McKenna’s influential

(12)

12

writings helped shape the ideological backdrop for rave culture and they remain popular in the scene. His importance in and indeed formative influence on the genre is demonstrated by the inclusion of fragments of his texts and lectures that infuse the psychedelic lyrics that are included as fragments inpsytrance tracks and sets (and other electronic music). To name but a few, besides the many samples he has actively collaborated and can be heard in The Shamen’s 1992 album Boss Drum, and psytrance acts Entheogenic, Spacetime Continuum, Zuvuya and Shpongle, on the latter’s albums Tales of the Inexpressible (2001) and Nothing Lasts… But

Nothing is Lost (2005). This text-based communication of some of the philosophy is just one

example in which the music relates extra-musical ideas, and they are very much interconnected. The way music and culture are related, and should be studied, is topic of discussion in its own right. Some recent developments in musicology of the last two decades ultimately required a reconsideration of music itself.

1.2 Music and Culture

What exactly it is that musicology should or should not include in its field of study is not always clear. In any case, it relates closely to music, but what that exactly is proves no less simple a matter. Although claims to music’s universality might seem plausible, the plural form (musics) may be just as necessary as for the concept of universe itself. The 20th century saw the emergence of various new and experimental musics, such as jazz, serialism, electronic music and new types of popular music, that have challenged the traditional musical establishment. With each creating a new set of musical practices, they vastly altered and expanded the roles of composers, performers and audiences. The necessity of musicology as a discipline to respond to these changing modes of production and consumption has led to a reconsideration of the ontological status of music itself. By the end of the century, traditional views on musicand prevailing analytical techniques were considered by some as overlooking the complexities that surround its varied and indeed, sometimes contradictory nature.

In particular, music in itself, as if it were one thing, a product, autonomous and commodified, and whether such a thing exists at all, has been increasingly subject to sometimes fierce debate, reflecting similar discussions throughout the humanities. For instance, the treatment of commodification in semiotics has had profound effects on both art history and criticism and literature in the postmodern, globalised era. The call for a stronger contextualisation of music, i.e., the relation of music to culture, politics and society, has increased in recent decades. In 1990, Georgina Born sees the need to address the relations

(13)

13

between music and culture by noticing that the historical music-analytical techniques fail to address the complexities particular to the music she studies. In her seminal paper ‘Understanding Music as Culture: Contributions from Popular Music Studies to a Social Semiotics of Music’, she argues how music ‘in itself’ virtually doesn’t exist, as all music is produced, mediated and consumed in a social context that may be considered immanent to the music in itself.

Nearly a decade later, Ralph Locke addresses the pretension of objectivity that has hitherto characterised much musicological thinking in his essay, ‘Musicology and/as Social Concern’ (1999). Attempting ‘to reveal the social messages that art-music has conveyed’, he draws attention to the way ‘music scholars themselves—ourselves—tend to express social values, including aesthetic ideologies, in published work and teaching, whether consciously or not. I might add here my belief that an increased willingness to make our assumptions explicit can strengthen musicological discourse in several ways’ (Locke 1999: 501). Music, after all, is a very social engagement, and the refusal to look at what people do, and how and why they do it, constitutes the ‘social value systems’ that have characterised much historical musicological thinking, which according to Locke ‘tends to act within a given framework of given values’ (Locke 1999: 510).

Therefore, the methodological approach of this historical framework, which focuses on Western art music and the analysis of traditional musical parameters, such as harmony, melody and instrumentation, has also been criticised. To Born, the elusive qualities of the pop aesthetic, and thus its problems, ‘are shared with non-western musics, and with much electronic and computer music’ (Born 1990: 215). For too long, EDMCs in general, including psytrance and festival culture at large, have been largely neglected in musicological debate. Much like popular music, EDM is not based on notation, most ideas and principles are orally transmitted during performances rather than written down, and communication in the scene is characterised by physical experiences (i.e., coming together). In many respects, EDM is in fact popular music, and it is slowly gaining a foothold in that musicological department.

The purely musical analysis of the popular music Born describes seems to ‘miss the musical point’, and it regards EDMCs and music festivals in much the same way. Meaning in these musical cultures resides not only in the aural mediation of music (i.e., the musical sound), but also in its social, visual, discursive, and technological mediations, with the aesthetic subsuming them all (Born 1990: 215). With different musics, different aesthetics emerge, and another set of appropriate tools is required, prompting an understanding of music as culture (Born 1990: 213). This music as culture, to reiterate, is the ensemble of ‘practices,

(14)

14

beliefs, communications, social relations, institutions and technologies through which a particular music is experienced, and has meaning’ (Born 1990: 211). More recently (2010), she has further extended views on the subject, adopting notions by herself and Small into a ‘Relational Musicology’, a musicology ‘that addresses different orders of the social in music and their complex interrelations’ (Born 2010: 235). A reflexive and inclusive approach which maintains difference and which is based on the relationships between various parties, beyond the individual interpreting subject (see Born 2010).

This Relational Musicology is best described by Cook, based on premises posed before by Born and Small, into a comprehensive line of thinking that focuses on Relational Musicology. ‘as a means of addressing key personal, social and cultural work that is accomplished by music in today’s world [: this is helping …] to counteract some of the blind spots of a traditional musicology oriented more or less exclusively towards the aesthetics of subjectivity, and towards musical products rather than processes of meaning production’ (Cook 2012: 196). He proceeds to include not only the ‘intercultural encounter’ of the various elements of musical performance that only gain meaning in relation to one another, but also various other elements of musicology, i.e., analysis, interpretation, and even of various musicologies themselves, ‘as a transaction between self and other’ (Cook 2012: 200).

The interactive approach to knowledge sharing is also central to a recent movement aptly denominated Cultural Musicology. The term was definitively coined by Dutch music scholar Wim van der Meer, who jointly with German musicologist Birgit Abels organised several workshops on the subject, as well as a colloquium in early 2014. While insisting on an open and inclusive approach, within the new movement one ‘can, should and will study any and all music, from any part of the world, art music or popular music, living music or dead music, without distinction’ (Van der Meer & Erickson 2014: 121). Providing a framework for Cultural Musicology, Van der Meer envisions it as open to transdisciplinarity, using various concepts from throughout the humanities as tools. Central to this cultural musicology is

musico-logica, or ‘music as a knowledge system’, introducing different lines of musical

thinking that include others than the institutionalised western ones. Regarding its modes of analysis, he says it can be done in any way possible, but with ‘more attention to detail and difference’ (Van der Meer & Erickson 2014: 122).

Clearly, the concepts and premises by Relational and Cultural Musicology carry great diversity and openness for the complex interrelations of music and musicology alike, allowing for multitextual analysis and ventures into other disciplines. Following Born, in this way one might ‘uncover either cumulative and reinforcing effects or, more interestingly,

(15)

15

contradictions and tensions operating between the levels of the ensemble’ (Born 1990: 218,

italics in original). The tension between these different levels is only one of several reasons for a multitextual approach. An interesting one to note here is the innovations that some musics have attempted to make by critiquing established forms of role patterns, not only in an aural or technical sense, but also regarding the social relations of music production (Born 1990: 218). The next chapter addresses these differing levels at Boom festival in more detail. When we consider Boom as an ensemble itself we may, for example, include the music, style and aesthetics, and the themes and messages the festival aims to put forth. We may even extend the definition of musicking by including/seeing all participants at the festival together in the same act. Small himself proposed the following definition: ‘To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing’ (Small 1998: 9).

1.3 Dance and Musical Embodiment

It is definitely the rhythm and the music that brings us here. […] In the beginning of this whole, it was the concept, the emotion of actually moving our bodies to a constant rhythm. This moment of connection, this moment of feeling ‘One’ when you look to your sides and you see people dancing exactly at the same frequency you are at this kind of contact that you generate by having a few hundred or thousand people around you that are in the same frequency, understanding the same sounds, perceiving the same emotion at that precise moment. This is unique.

Boom co-founder Diogo Ruivo during a lecture in the Liminal Village (The Alchemy

of Spirit part I, 13:18)

Perhaps the first and most basic musicking activity is dancing. As the ‘condition native to dance cultures of all times’, dance is said to allow us to reconnect to ourselves, to other people, and to the earth, by going back to a basic human form. In this manner, as St John argues, the decidedly psychedelic mysticism of psytrance potentiates, through the dance event, a transgressive dynamic called the crossroads of consciousness. In several steps, a dissolution of traditional ‘rational consciousness’ is to be achieved, through the ‘ecstatic entrancement […] in which participants are unburdened of disciplined, voluntary, modes of subjectivity and embodiment’ (St John & Baldini 2012: 524). Consequently, this should lead

(16)

16

to an immersion in ‘cosmic consciousness’, a transpersonal state of mind reconnecting to our ancestral roots, the connection to whom we had lost. Ultimately, there will be an ‘evolution of consciousness’ into a new era in which humanity will have lost the ‘chains of oppression that separate [it] from its own potential’ (St John & Baldini 2012: 524). Some of these tendencies are not only expressed by scholars; I have heard several participants speak in similar terms (see below).

‘Since the principal means by which these tendencies are affected is dance, and the chief stage upon which this integralism operates is the dance floor, considerable resources are invested by both event-organisers and attendees to potentiate the experiences of communitas, synchronicity, and novelty that is emically understood as the “vibe” (or the “Goa vibe”)’ (St John & Baldini 2012: 525). Shared by the whole community, the conscious, open energy of this ‘vibe’ is described in a whole range of terms. They include, among others, the ‘sensation of “newness”’ (St John 2009: 38), the ‘flow’ (Malbon 1999), or a ‘buzz’, as one participant described it—‘when you’re really enjoying yourself and you can turn around and you can see 20 other faces of people who are enjoying what they’re doing for exactly the same reasons. It just gives you a bit of a buzz’ (quoted in Packer & Ballantyne 2011: 169). All of them refer to the shared elevating feeling of togetherness and reconnection characteristic of dance, one that is extended to the whole festival. It reminds us of the festival’s roots in music and dance, singled out here but blending in with other levels of the ensemble, that can be felt both personally and collectively, and as such prevails as an atmosphere at Boom’s Healing Area (see Chapter 3).

Recalling Terence McKenna’s Archaic Revival, the collectively felt desire to return to ancient, symbiotic and more spiritual ways of living and communicating, the processes sketched out by St John are thus integrated with and in line with Boom’s overall festival experience. This can be attested to not only by views stated by the festival’s organisation (see below), but also by festivalgoers asked about their experience. In the Boom documentary, The

Alchemy of Spirit (a play on Terence McKenna’s lecture, ‘The Spirit of Alchemy’, in two

parts to be watched on YouTube), a small group of people sitting and talking somewhere at the festival grounds, describe with a similar vocabulary this transitory evolution of experience, reinforcing St John. A boy says, ‘We’re social animals and dance is a very social behaviour. And we do it all together. We don’t just communicate with it, we need it to really feel united. And bees use it for work, and we use it to not feel completely disconnected from everything else, from everyone else.’ A girl next to him agrees: ‘That’s what I was gonna say, it lets us reconnect with the real things, that are not exactly the city, the routine, the work, the

(17)

17

study, whatever is your life. It lets you reconnect to the roots’ (The Alchemy of Spirit part I, from 15:51).

This reconnection occurs at the very apex of our physical existence, our bodies. The ability of rhythm to synchronise dance as movement to music as sound allows people to align physically to the same basic pulse (Kai Fikentscher, as quoted in St John 2009: 38). Ofer Rosenthal, coordinator of the Water Tent that offers water therapies at Boom’s Healing Area, explains how exactly it does that. Sound literally enters the body because, he says, ‘Water has the best conductivity of sound in all of nature’s things’, pointing out that sounds ‘can be heard with your ears but the sound goes through your bones, enters through you thus playing with the liquids inside your body’ (The Alchemy of Spirit part II, 20:25). Music, then, is directly experienced through the body. The sheer physicality of music that is described here regarding water has its parallel in the bass on the dance floor, creating a physically felt alignment— unity, if you will—in the bodies of the dancers. This very physical form of musicking shows yet another level of the ensemble that together makes up the festival, mimicking the ‘collective improvisation’ that Cook describes as the inevitable form of interaction in the encounter of people together on the dance floor. Dance then, by synchronising the body to the movement of sound (in this case, psytrance music) passing through it, enables individuals to respond to the movement that the sounds themselves create in the body. This feeling, in turn, is shared by all those who engage together in dancing to the same music, connecting them all together.

Nevertheless, this is not unique to psytrance. It might be said of other EDMCs as well, and of other musics altogether. Some visitors to the festival, including myself, do not really come for the psytrance, if at all, as it is not their preferred music style. Boom however does offer, besides non-stop psytrance, three other stages with an eclectic soundscape varying from Afrobeats to techno, and from psychedelic rock to fusion. In addition, smaller sound systems create improvised dance floors with various musics on the beach, or anywhere else at the festival, attracting more intimate, but no less funky crowds. The liberating feeling of a mind-altering, deep reconnection to the roots, however, is a characteristic strongly associated with psytrance by both scholars and participants (see Chapter 3), as well as the specifically psychedelic mindset, and in turn a red thread woven through all Boom’s experiences, as will be detailed below.

The pivotal role played here by dance is creating a sense of unity and community that is felt and reiterated through the music, allowing Boom’s visitors to attune to each other through non-verbal communication, by physical means. In all, ‘dancefloors enable habitués

(18)

18

direct contact with nature, to the four elements, the cycles of the cosmos, and to ground-quaking bass’ (St John & Baldini 2012: 523). They serve as the festival nexus of this deeper connection to the Earth, the self, and the other, reverberating an energy that one, even if not an enthusiast of psytrance, comes to understand and eventually even appreciate as psytrance forms the basis of all else at the festival. An Australian girl confirms, ‘I feel the energy more than anything. ‘Cause to be really honest, I was never like a big psytrance fan, […] but that dance tent, it’s more the energy that like draws me in’ (The Alchemy of Spirit part I, 16:38).

As far as dancing is concerned, those addicted to Boom’s dance floors are easily included into an analysis of musicking. Regarding the other things happening at the festival, even Small himself has provided an extended definition, taking into account all who aid in any way in a musical performance, including those selling tickets to a concert, technicians carrying out soundchecks, or even the cleaners who clean up afterwards. ‘They too’, says Small, ‘are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance’ (Small 1998: 9). Cook’s use of Relational Musicology builds on this part of the concept. Interesting for the present discussion is the integration of all activities at the festival and considering them as related, as musicking, as taking part in music. Following Small’s extended definition, we may even consider any and all organisers, artists, visitors and others at Boom festival to be musicking, given the fact that it remains principally a (psytrance) music festival around which everything else has been based; recalling Born, the whole festival remains an ensemble.

1.4 Art, Aesthetics and Spirituality

The qualities of dance as discussed above, and especially the ‘vibe’, are by no means restricted to music and dance alone. With strong visual displays and sensory stimulation, psytrance culture employs a specifically psychedelic aesthetic that applies extensively to various aspects of the festival. The vivid colours, shapes and designs further the potentiation of the crossroads of consciousness, as St John describes it, and the broader goals of ‘transgression and progression’, ultimately achieving Oneness. It involves, in his terms, the ‘technics’ (a contraction of technologies and techniques) of psytrance, designed to facilitate the ‘ostensibly liberating tendencies’ of dance (St John & Baldini 2012: 524-5). At the festival, smells of sage, incense and palo santo surround you everywhere. Participants can be seen swinging in their hoops, juggling or waving around glowing LED poi. They can be recognised by their tattoos and piercings, bracelets (of various festivals) and other often handmade jewellery, bare feet (if possible), colourful outfits that seem to harmoniously blend

(19)

19

‘natural’ materials and styles with sports clothing and digital devices. Vice reporter Clive Martin somewhat reluctantly admires their flying dreadlocks, interpreted as the appropriation of rasta culture, but in the best case a ‘great post-racial, pancultural aesthetic that made everyone look like a rogue squadron’ (Martin 2013).

Interestingly, the difference at the same time holds a somewhat clear preference for a comparable multi-ethnic, but hippie-based style; apparently having already developed over time, the encounter between different elements has become a colourful blend of difference, created into a recognizable visual style, yet preserving singular elements and allowing for experimentation. The layout of the Boomland follows a similar trend, combining into one such natural construction materials as (recycled) wood, bamboo and the ancient building material of adobe with the latest technology in construction and digital printing. It mixes the iconographic elements borrowed from various folklores, dragons, Hindu gods with psychedelic art, referencing Alice in Wonderland (in the magical forest of the Sacred Fire area). Stunning artwork is found everywhere, with the Visionary Art Museum showing a collection of psychedelic paintings and sculptures that display many fractal (art) designs and spectacular multi-media shows. One artist featured there in 2014 was Android Jones, one of whose portraits serving as the cover for the Dharma Dragon of the 2012 edition. He says,

‘Seeing the dynamics of what electronic music is, there’s a particular alchemy, you have this musician that’s kind of like a, some sort of neo-contemporary type of magician or wizard that has the sound that unifies all the people, and the trance is very good at getting everyone into the same rhythm and so I try to put the intention into my visuals to enhance the spell of the music producer to create even a more cohesive experience, so part of the technology of the main dance floor is to create almost a machine that helps people let go of themselves and surrender to this experience they’re having. And the more collective this experience can be the more they let go of their individuality and can enjoin into more of the collective “We are all One” that is part of like the Boom mantra. And if I can do that, I feel that I have succeeded in my intentions.’

(The Alchemy of Spirit part I, 35:05)

Jones is not the only one to want to create a visual—and spiritual—design to accompany the music. As one member of the construction team underscores, the Dance Temple, the main stage featuring only psytrance, is also designed to ‘facilitate the journey of the dancers’. The dazzling eclecticism of the 2012 edition included elements from Egyptian, Mayan,

(20)

20

Polynesian, and alchemist iconography and architecture infused with UV-based light and art, honoring the world of psytrance and psychedelic culture. Indeed, in line with its mystic, spiritual and religious meanings, the reason why Boom’s main stage is named so is because the main architect wished to see it as a temple, because ‘A temple is a sacred architectural form where all forms kind of work together for a common vision to activate the people within, to connect them to the heavens, to the multiple dimensions’ (The Alchemy of Spirit part II, from 13:48).

If, then, the Dance Temple symbolically mimics the holy physical structure of the temple, the DJ oversees it all as a priest, or rather, assumes the role of a shaman leading into ecstasy the thriving crowd or tribe, who move their bodies, intoxicated at least by the music, unified by dance. This association of the DJ as a shaman is made more often, not only by artists (see reference), but also by academics, seen as ‘a kind of channeller of frequencies and beats to massage and activate the unconscious and the superconscious via ecstatic, meditative, trance-dance—which becomes a form of euphoric, collective catharsis’ (Ray Castle, quoted in Partridge 2006: 49).

The spirito-religious character of psytrance and its followers is another defining feature that is experienced on various levels, as ‘research consistently identifies contemporary dance culture as contexts enabling an immediate and sensational sociality approximating a religious or spiritual experience for its participants’ (St John 2009: 38). Many parties are concentrated around celestial events or annual terrestrial cycles such as equinoxes; Boom itself is situated around full moon. Today, they still remain a source of celebration, while spirituality and religion have become an eclectic mix of beliefs and practices, signs, rites and rituals among participants. Although some of the Indian spiritualities, inherited from Goa, remain in the cultural displays of the festival, the change of location created a shift of balance of spiritual ideas, incorporating more local religious traditions (Partridge 2006: 48). At a festival like Boom, this culminates in widely varied cultural and spiritual displays. The approach of an eclectic, integrated ensemble of variously mixed old and new elements is emblematic of psytrance in that its striving is inclusive in nature.

The aesthetics and visual design, in all their eclecticism, form part of the tactics employed to promote ‘the vibe’, and as such serve as a visual rendition of the culture’s philosophy. It appropriates from all cultures and mixes them together into a hybrid, which can be understood as an encounter of several units. Taken together, they form a loose collective improvisation, with each taken as inspiration without expressing a specific preference for any one culture or religion. As St John sees it, what is called a new or alternative spirituality

(21)

21

adheres to a ‘spiritual relativism which sees a profusion of religions and symbol systems adopted in the belief that they offer access to similar divine truths’ (St John 2009: 42). This is also reflected in the personal styles of psytrancers, who effortlessly pair natural styles of clothing with glow-in-the-dark paint and blacklight, demonstrating how the combination of ‘organicism’ and up-to-date technological developments is not necessarily oppositional. In itself, this subdued tension between old and new, and local and global elements thrust Boom into the here and now, its basis for wanting to create an alternative future. It provides one of the levels that, inherently intercultural, as an ensemble make up the festival.

It is still, however, the Portuguese context in which the festival was born, and it still owes to that country in that Portuguese politics, i.e. the open Portuguese drug laws in particular, have had a decisive impact on the festival and its own policies. Moreover, for its part the festival provides an influx of visitors and tourism into the country, providing some stimulation for the local economy and contributing in other ways. The location of the festival is rather in the middle of nowhere in the Portuguese countryside, with only a handful of small villages in its vicinity. It makes a stark contrast with the generally urban setting of the élite festivals that are the main focus of Waterman’s research. As with similar festivals, the natural, unspoiled setting of the Boomland contributes to the feeling of reconnecting with nature and the spirit of the earth. Of course, the festival shapes and changes the local topography, but Boom aims to give back to the earth what has been taken from it. It has connections to the local community and works together with it, and the wastes from the festival are to a high degree reused and recycled. At Boom, sustainable initiatives are promoted that have the possibility of being used on a far wider scale, the implications of which are the subject of the next chapter.

1.5 Summary

Psytrance evolved in the hippie communities of Goa, and it retains the alternative, underground and open energy that comes best to expression in festivals. Its culture is intrinsic to the genre, and consideration of the cultural context in conjunction with the music is necessary. What music is exactly and, closely related to it, what musicology should study, remains somewhat problematic. Musicology has fallen short for a long time in ignoring the immediate social context of music. Recently, musicological debate has given rise to the widespread view that more varied, inclusive and socially aware approaches to describing, appreciating and indeed perceiving various musics, such as popular music and EDMCs, are

(22)

22

needed, changing the foundations of the discipline itself. With the analysis of Boom festival, such an approach is indeed necessary, as the festival is by definition a complexly layered, multitextual entity.

Main influences here come from Cultural and Relational Musicology, and in the same line of thinking, Christopher Small’s idea of musicking contributes to an understanding of music as encompassing all activities surrounding a musical performance. It reminds us how music is not a thing but an act. We are all musicking, and this what binds everyone together. A central element to the idea of musicking is dance, that with its very physical surrender of dancers’ bodies allows individuals for a reconnection to the self, and to the earth. Moving one’s body to the same sounds, unified with others through the same beat allows for a strongly felt physical ecstasy that can creates the connection. The ‘vibe’ that dance engenders, Graham St John argues, potentiates an evolution of the crossroads of consciousness leading from a dissolution of the self, through an immersion in a world/spirit consciousness, towards a new consciousness leading in a new era.

The potentiation of this vibe hence also has parallels in other parts of the festival, like arts and aesthetics. Moreover, these shared visions, including those by Terence McKenna, are legitimised through the lyrics, adding to the connection and form a visual and spiritual counterpart to the philosophy that characterises psytrance culture. Through the foundation of modern rave culture, arising from trance and dance from the 1960s onward, psytrance retains its connections to ancient cultures and religions. This ‘mix-and-match’ approach to spiritual and religious elements, ranging from Eastern mythology, paganism and animist beliefs, are included in artworks, music and other elements. At Boom, psytrance lends the festival a harmonious mixture of scattered elements, all seamlessly woven into a multi-layered

ensemble, the complexity of which allows for a reading of its constituent elements as such. In it, meaning and identity are constructed rather from the interaction of these elements than that of any single element by itself. And to this identity it adds a variety of principles on other levels as well—the subject of my second chapter.

(23)

23

2. Music and Power: Prefigurating Change

When you come to these big events and big festivals it’s kind of this we’re creating this big illusion, you know this sort of fantasy mirage, a vision of what reality could be like or how we’d wish that reality was more like with people being open. It’s kind of like a painting, it’s a collection of shapes, it’s not really a thing. But it illustrates and it kind of points a finger towards something that we would all eventually like to have happened on a greater scale.

American man (The Alchemy of Spirit part I, 20:33)

The ideas of Cultural and Critical Musicology and musicking give way to a better under-standing of music’s relationship to other social phenomena and culture at large. This chapter continues in this direction, exploring the ways in which Boom festival relates to the social spectrum and how it can contribute to change.

The distant origins of Boom festival, as we saw in Chapter 1, lie in the psychedelic community of Goa. Boom itself, however, began as an anarchist psytrance party, a small gathering in the woods numbering around one hundred people. The ecstatic experience of the party and the music, fuelled by psychedelics and coloured by the beauty of the environment, led to a growing consciousness as to the effects they as people had on the environment (also see Partridge 2006: 50). Slowly a vision arose, and subsequently the direction towards greater sustainability apparently ‘just happened’, says Boom’s Nena Alava. As she revealed, the steadily growing popularity of the festival, and thus its growing number of visitors, led the organisers to consider their responsibility by asking themselves if they had the right to bring so many people to a location to party and afterwards leave the site as a dump. The conclusion was that they could not, so from the early 2000s onwards awareness grew, and they started to teach people to dispose of their trash in a better way. It was a first step in what has by now become an intricate plan to extend this policy ever further, and a first sign to remind us that, at least at Boom festival, the ensemble levels of the music and its concurrent behaviours are thus connected so that they, as we will see, can indeed reinforce each other.

Boom is not the only festival to have taken this direction—the association of festivals with social change has been mentioned before. Regarding the Hillside Festival Erin Sharpe says, ‘The organizational support for the principles of community, diversity, and social and environmental responsibility began to be viewed much more strongly as not only an enactment of a set of organizational values, but also as an act of cultural resistance’ (Sharpe 2008: 223). When Waterman described the popular festival as enabling ‘the politically marginal to express discontent through ritual,’ he saw it as ‘restricting their revolutionary

(24)

24

impulses to symbolic form’ (1998: 60). This use of the concept of restriction, however, is unsatisfying. As I will argue, it undervalues the far-reaching potential of this symbolic form.

‘Can the “pleasure” of leisure co-exist with the “politics” of social action?’ (Sharpe 2008: 218). To explore just how serious the attention concerning politics and society at a music festival is to be regarded, we have to relate it specifically to Boom, starting with its origins that set the festival somewhat apart from the hippie movement to which it is otherwise indebted (see Chapter 1; for a more detailed discussion see Greener & Hollands 2006: 397). The hippies, who advocated peace and love, seem to have devoted a considerable part of their energy to a political engagement that emphasised what was wrong with the world, urging others (like politicians) to make changes. Transformational festivals nowadays, by comparison, have a more positive view. As I will argue, they also start with peace and love, but when it comes to politics, Boom, amidst other festivals and the psytrance community at large, does not seek direct social confrontations or encourage resistance as such. That may not be as revolutionary, but that does not seem to be its initial goal.

Instead, Boom started out as a party that eventually turned into a festival, to which celebration and enjoyment were central, maintaining peace among its participants. These values remain fundamental. Boom wants to change the world starting with itself, and it does so not by creating instant revolution, but by being much more self-reflexive. This attitude may not involve politics or social action directly, but the fact that the connection is made is a defining characteristic of Boom, and decisive for its social stance. In the Healing Area, the spiritual area at Boom (see Chapter 3), peace remains at the core; the key festival elements of enjoyment and celebration remain intact and focus their energy on everything positive, and instead of calling for others to change, it offers change itself, and in a multitude of ways indeed (see below). As the organisation points out, ‘Festivals must provide tools for change. It is Boom’s commitment to create a reality that relates positively with the environment and contributes to the education and knowledge of all’ (http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2014/ environment/mission-awards/, my italics).

This is perhaps its most intriguing quality and exemplary of a prefigurative approach. Coined by sociologist Winifred Breines, Sharpe uses the term to describe ‘a style [of activism] that was decidedly more positive, celebratory, and leisurely than what tends to be associated with the experience of advocating for social change.’ In other words, ‘A prefigurative approach focuses on inspiration rather than opposition’ (Sharpe 2008: 227). Beyond being restricted to symbolic resistance alone, as Waterman dismissed it, this approach can have far-reaching consequences. Just as Hillside ‘prefigured’ the vision of society it

(25)

25

wished to create, Boom uses the prefigurative approach to promote environmental awareness by conspicuously weaving such projects and objectives into the more celebratory aspects of the festival. Bearing in mind the theory of musicking as ‘the entire set of relationships that constitutes a musical experience’, if we continue Born’s metaphor of considering interrelated elements as an ensemble, this prefigurative approach can be explained in terms of several of its levels. They can be divided into education (sharing knowledge), action (the things Boom does by itself), and networking (the establishment of cooperations to combine the previous two), each of which is discussed in more detail below.

2.1 Education: The Liminal Village as Forum

If the Dance Temple is the place nurturing mystical states of awareness – which require new answers to fundamental questions: Who are we? What are we doing here? Where are we going? – then Liminal Village is the place where one finds the information needed to start building a new individual and collective identity through a new worldview.

http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2014/program/liminal-village/

Boom’s Liminal Village is a space at the festival where information is shared, spread and where many lectures are held. A place for discussion and transformation, the name of this educational centre is taken from the concept of liminality (from Latin limen, ‘threshold’), the ambiguous middle stage of a ritual. This state of transition is taken as a symbol for the site where the organisation communicates its messages of love and sustainability, tinged with mysticism, hereby creating and sharing new ideas. All lectures and workshops in the Liminal Village are free and accessible to anyone who is interested, and indeed, I noticed them to be frequently visited throughout the festival, both by those who specifically come to visit them and by passersby who are curious to learn and discover more. In line with the prefigurative approach that focuses not only outwards but inwards as well, this personal discovery concerns not only the outside world and what happens there, but also to reinforce the connection participants have with themselves—change within Boom starts with the self.

Through its program at the Liminal Village (for the full program, see http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2014/site/pdf/LiminalVillage_program_BoomFest2014.pd f, page 10), the festival can promote the subjects and values of its own interest, while offering a platform for others to share and promote their ideas. Selecting speakers from all over the world, the semi-covered area hosts a variety of lectures, presentations and interactive

(26)

26

workshops on topics as diverse as psychedelia, politics and spiritual awareness. That is no handful of talks scattered throughout the one-week festival, on the contrary: every day has its own theme and a full program from 9.00 am until midnight, and a range of films and documentaries are shown there during the night. It is an example of how ‘festivals provide a way for groups to gain control of cultural space, challenge dominant ideologies, and move specific issues to the centre, particularly when the event was organised around a culture or identity that is marginalized in dominant culture’ (Sharpe 2008: 219). The Liminal Village provides a powerful forum for researchers, therapists and other visionaries to display their knowledge, views and products. Linked to it, for example, is the Eco Tech Hub, a newly designed space for the 2016 edition of the festival, created to promote technological advance-ments and their integration with humanitarian causes (see https://www.boomfestival.org/ boom2016/program/liminal-village/diy-green-tech/).

During the last day of the festival, themed the 4th Futurological Symposium on Free Cultural Spaces, a discussion panel was held called Keeping it real! Sustainability in Large Scale Events. Here Boom’s André Soares explained how the combined efforts of Boom’s

initiatives work on a small scale, but to possible great effect. ‘Sometimes a small change in the process can create huge benefits’. As an example, Soares mentioned how the reduced shower times in the Boomland (two times six hours daily) contribute to saving water. In the shower areas, as in many other areas of the festival (especially the compost toilets, see below), the background motivations of these policies are explained to the public, so those who make use of the services eventually learn about them. The educational aspect is obvious, with 50,000 people being reached at once—and through spreading the word, possibly more. As Soares says, the people who come there can contribute to make things better, ‘to make a transition to a different reality. A way to rehearse the future, try to be comfortable with less’ (Soares 2014, my italics). And, perhaps unknowingly, they do so; in my experience, it is easy at Boom to give away and be okay with little, as there is so much you receive in return.

Another discussion panel held on the same day was entitled ‘Global Festivals at a Turning Point: Hedonism vs. Activism’. The panel consisted of Nena Alava, who is head of bio-architecture at Boom and involved for many years, and Monica Fernandez, Executive Producer of DoLab, the organisation behind San Francisco’s Lightning in a Bottle festival. They were joined by DJ Isis, a Dutch DJ who was Nightlife Ambassador

(‘Nacht-burgemeester’) of Amsterdam from 2010-2012 during which she was the instigator of

Magneet Festival, also performing at the festival; and visual artist Android Jones, whose artwork has been used for promotional purposes of the festival on the website, and displayed

Boom festival: Rehearsing the Future. Music and the Prefiguration of Change