Things We Learned at Sonar Copenhagen Last Weekend

All photos by Nicole Leblanc.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of attending a mainstream electronic music festival abroad – the kind that features Avicii – we’re guessing your experience was framed by hordes of stoked 17 year olds donning sunglasses at night, spilling buckets of sticky Vodka RedBulls all over your shoes in an MDMA-induced lack of bodily control and social etiquette. Last weekend, however, showed us that thankfully, not all electronic music festivals are made equal—and more and more are popping up that have pretty much nothing in common with the absurdly popular EDM parties we love to hate. Over Friday and Saturday, Sonar Copenhagen – the city’s version of the massively successful Barcelona-based electronic music and experimental media festival – provided a much-needed alternative to the usual hellpit of sweat and STDs. In fact, this much-needed alternative taught us quite a few things. Festival goers and organizers take note, here’s what we learned over the weekend.

The More Expensive the Drinks Are, the More Fucked Up People Will Get on Their Own
Presumably when the Sonar organizers booked DRs Koncerthus as the venue for Sonar, part of their logic was, ‘Oh, sweet, beer is 50 kr a pop so people won’t get all that fucked up raving to Kölsch, which means we’ll probably get away with avoiding a fine for putting holes in the walls.’ Wrong. So, so wrong. People are good at drinking. They’re resourceful about it in even the bleakest of situations—so when drinks at the bar are ludicrously expensive, you can be sure they’ll quickly come up with innovative, alternative means to get their fixes. Result: pretty much everyone at Sonar looked beamed the whole time—a slightly daunting scene when you realize it’s not even 8 pm yet and you’ve got hours and hours to go of putting up with high people.

Speaking of 8 pm…
There’s a reason that people were dipping into their pill cocktails even before the sun had properly set. That’s because the programming for both Friday and Saturday started at 7:00 pm—a bizarre, and honestly awkward choice. Not only did one feel bad for the musicians giving their all to a sparsely-filled room, but doing your signature techno dance moves without dense crowds of people to cushion them is a surefire way to destroy your self confidence as you clue in to the reality of what you actually look like dancing to Bjarki. Hint: aggressive head-bobbing is not as alluring as you may have hoped.

You May Run Into Your Parents While Partying Your Face Off.
Sonar Copenhagen had a seriously stellar lineup. There was something to suit nearly every taste: whether you were one for the sexy, chill R&B vibe of Smerz, the floating grooves of Taragana Pyjarama, or the fuck-it-lets-get-some-nosebleeds intensity of Kölsch, you were guaranteed to find something to cater to your varying moods and tastes throughout the evening. However, since Sonar Copenhagen did such a quality job of bringing something to the table to satisfy a diverse assortment of music fans, that means people showed up you normally wouldn’t see at electronic music festivals—as in, people who probably have their lives together and a mortgage and expensive reading glasses and disposable income to hire a babysitter for the night.

Since this is Copenhagen – the city where you run into everyone you know, pretty much everywhere, pretty much all the time – chances are, some of these people will be your parents. Your girlfriend’s parents. Your old boss. That dapper-looking older couple you always see strolling around your neighborhood. Now usually, this may cause you to reconsider how much of a fool you’re comfortable with making of yourself in public. However, there was no need to worry at Sonar. When you see a barely-legal looking dude in a sweat-drenched white tee crash-force an older gentleman wearing an immaculately tailored vest into a bear hug, and the gentleman actually seems to have a good time going along with it, you know there’s magic in the air. That’s what Sonar was like: the festival really made you feel like you could do whatever you wanted, however you wanted and no one would bother judging you—which is pretty impressive considering the whole thing took place in a very serious, very colossal architectural masterpiece.

Darkness Falls.

Danish Electronic Musicians Are Killing it.
A lot of stuff blew us away at Sonar. Kiasmos from Iceland submerged us in a state of pure bliss. Zebra Katz from New York got our hearts pumping significantly harder and faster than usual. Yet for all the International talent we saw, it’s undeniable that the Danish acts we danced to stood out from the rest in their own regard—and proved there’s a lot to keep an eye on in Denmark in terms of electronic music. From Darkness Falls to October Dance, or from Taragana Pyjarama to Puce Mary, there’s sheer momentum to the electronic music scene in Denmark. Although Sonar Copenhagen just gave us a small taste of it, it was enough to communicate just how thriving this momentum is. And really, for all the things we saw and learned at Sonar Copenhagen, that’s probably the best takeaway of all.