Sonic Bloom 2012: More Than Just a Music Festival
by Joel Center
The perfect music festival – it is a topic of much debate amongst promoters, artists, and fans alike. As with nearly all debates, it is the lack of one solid answer that fuels the flame, keeping the argument heated year after year. Without fail, one of the first factors to arise in such a conversation is the line up; there can’t be a music festival without any music! The second, significantly more difficult factor to describe is the Festival aspect.
So how exactly is a festival atmosphere created? Some promoters rely on sensory overload; a myriad of lights, lasers, decorations, food, art, games, and of course, gut-wrenching sound systems. While this is hardly a bad combination, sometimes it can be lacking in the profoundness that one might expect from an entire weekend filled with incredible music and like-minded people. The environment of the ideal music festival should be just as conducive to mind expansion as the music itself, and Sonic Bloom 2012, put on by Jamie Janover, had this ideal down to a tee.
Hosted in Shadows Ranch, Georgetown, Sonic Bloom is not your typical music festival. Upon entrance to the festival, the first thing one notices is the extremely small perimeter, allowing for a much more intimate feel than festivals three or four times larger. While the grounds may be small, there is no lack whatsoever of features to astound the eye. Aside from the small lake and beautiful river running through the grounds, there is art absolutely everywhere, with sacred geometry being a central theme. From small arrangements of rocks and plants, to a woman made out of shards of mirror, you cannot look anywhere without seeing a creation made especially for Sonic Bloom.
Before the music began, the festival was officially brought in with the Opening Ceremonies, led by Adam Apollo; a gathering of everyone in attendance within earshot (which is nearly the entire venue), for a very tribal, ritualistic speech showing gratitude to not only the audience, but to various energies and directions of the Earth as well. Although the whole ordeal may have caught some off guard, it was a perfect introduction to the energy that would course through the veins of Sonic Bloom throughout the rest of that weekend.
The first performance that really beat its message into the eardrums of its beholders was by Filistine, a producer from Barcelona with a powerful blend of haunting world music with raw, industrial sounds. The music itself would have been enough to deliver awe to the crowd, but what really made it impactful was the perfectly timed video behind the performers depicting meaningful moments in humanity; from starvation, war, and riots, to beautiful interactions and relationships between people of all cultures.
Tipper delivered two incredible sets with a professional demeanor that was reflected by the perfection of his performance. It was breathtakingly obvious to the audience that every sound coming out of the speakers had been expertly crafted, placed, and mastered. His light show wasn’t half bad, either. This year’s Sonic Bloom Orchestra put on another memorable performance; a super group comprised of some of the more notable artists in attendance including Michael Travis and Jason Hann of EOTO, Jamie Janover, Dave Watts of the Motet, Govinda, and many other guest performers.
With such an intimately spaced festival comes a genuine connection with the people in attendance. It is almost a guarantee that you will see every face at a festival this size, and many more than once, giving you a chance to really get to know a lot of the people surrounding you. A smaller festival also discourages “Scene Exploiters” (pickpockets, hustlers, scalpers, the occasional pimp, etc.) from flocking from afar for their bit of ill-made profit.
Most of the time, the primary goal of a festival promoter is to make enough money to put on the whole show again next year, and maybe some pocket change on the side. Sonic Bloom, on the other hand, in partnership with the Conscious Alliance (a national grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated to feeding the hungry and educating the youth), not only provides an incredible weekend filled with concerts and art, but also hosts a wide variety of workshops and discussions with subjects ranging from yoga and meditation to “Spirit Molecule Alchemy” and “Galactic Earth: Humanity’s Transition to an Interplanetary Species.”
There was a very optimistic motif throughout the festival, both spoken and felt, of creating change in a society that appears damned to spend eternity trapped in a vicious cycle of consumption and production. Participants left Georgetown that weekend transformed into ambassadors of evolution and progress, ready to spread their newfound knowledge amongst the souls unfortunate enough to have missed Sonic Bloom 2012.
Category: Electric Buzz
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