Met Darude During the Sandstorm Music Festival 2014 in Batangas

                           

I'm not the type of person who often go clubbing on weekends. But this did not stop me from saying yes to cover a beach party slash music festival last Nov. 22 - 23, 2014 in Batangas. It sounded so awesome that I cancelled all of my blogging events for these days since this is an out of town trip. To those who have never heard of this before, Sandstorm 2014 is all about electronic music, dancing and partying in the beach. I honestly had no idea what's going to happen and who are the persons worth checking out actually here. I was in good faith expecting I will have fun no matter what. After all this is an all-expense paid trip courtesy of a PR agency and the organizers of this event.

We left Manila 5pm on Nov. 22nd and arrived around 10pm at Southcrest Beach Resort and National Park. Upon entering the main entrance, we can already hear the loud party music all over the place which got us really perked up . At the back of my mind I was asking this question "Will I ever meet someone special tonight?" We were greeted by these young English speaking ladies at the registration booth. They handed us a smartphone we used to key in our details and wrapped a good-looking lace in our hand with a chip inside. 

We headed to a "villa" where we are supposed to stay that night and had dinner. We then proceeded to another private resort to do our task which is interviewing the guests of Sandstorm 2014. We first met Deficio,  two young DJ's from Sweden.  We were in a hurry to talk to them as everything was not prepared when we did it. 

Next in line was Darude, Ville Vertinen in real life from Finland. HE is a techno producer and became one of the most-sought DJ's worldwide after her released his first hit "Sandstorm" in 1996. We enjoyed his company while throwing questions of all sorts to him because of his wit and dedication to music. 

We also got to interview Jacob So, the 27-year old founder of Sandstorm 2014. He said his passion to music and partying inspired him to create this festival.  

Jacob So left side

We roamed around and found out that there were 3 stages spread out each has a DJ playing different genres of music. The way the stages are constructed I can see that a pretty huge amount of money were spent for this. 

The music was really great. I really had fun.  The crowd was wild that night. I also saw a good number of foreigners who joined this event. I never missed DJ Darude play that night. He literally amazed everyone with his music. Dancing in the beach with my feet stomping on the sand and seeing the sky filled with countless stars is a priceless memory.

However I did not felt the thousands of party-goers who they said will join the event. In my own eyes, I have only seen hundreds. Maybe because there were 3 stages so the crowd is divided and that the party is from sunset to sunrise ... almost nonstop. 

Jacob mentioned that they will create another music festival sometime in May to be called Oasis. If you will ask me whether I will join them next time, I will think twice first because we did not like the kind of treatment we had that time. The only thing worth remembering is meeting Darude in that trip. Perhaps if he will be guesting that would be the reason I will say yes.