Zouk Out 2006: A Dance Music Festival, Sentosa Singapore

Rating:
Bring Fête de la Musique to Boracay's station one, fence out the shore so nobody can swim, have a small army of sweepers continuously pick up litter, sprinkle in some uniformed police for good luck and you pretty much have an idea of what Zouk Out is like.

For my readers who have neither been to the fête nor Boracay (you should go to both!), Zouk Out is essentially four stages of music set up on a beach spanning an area slightly bigger than a football field. It's Singapore's biggest party and according to the organizers, they had 18,000 revelers turnout during last year's event. So I donned beach clothes, brought a chocolate bar (for energy) and hopped on the MRT to harbourfront to see what all this fuss was about.

Getting there
What does an MRT look like packed with "18,000 revelers"? This was the question I asked myself as I got on the train. But as I got off the Harbourfront terminal 11ish pm, the question was replaced with "Am I too early?" I only saw a handful of people in beach wear so I thought I must've gotten the date wrong. But when I got to the Harbourfront bus terminal to hop on the $2 shuttle to Sentosa, I saw the signs pointing to Zouk Out. The queue to board the bus was moving very quickly (plus points for efficiency!) and we were on the road within 10 minutes. There was a traffic jam on the narrow bridge and the lane going away from Sentosa was an exodus of taxis.

Pre-party preparations
As I got off the bus and walked toward the hallowed party grounds, I noticed people were having mini-parties drinking beer, gin and generally getting sloshed. It kinda makes sense because the alcohol is sure to be more expensive inside the venue but I dunno... the whole "let's get wasted first" thing sorta has an "errrr... okaaayyy..." feel to it.

Anyway back to queues-- I'm glad I bought my $38 ticket ahead of time because it's more expensive to buy it at the gate. As an added bonus, you'll have to queue up some more! So I jumped directly to the two security and bag checks (which instantly reminded me of home)-- Absolutely no food or drink is allowed inside. Thankfully, my chocolate bar attracted a frown but survived the trash bin.

As I stepped on the hallowed party grounds, I was salivating about the different kinds of music i'd hear tonight-- maybe some funky tribal house or some inventive mash-ups of progressive trance and 60's music samples, etc.. etc... But the very first few strains of music that greeted were...

*gasp*

the theme from Ghostbusters!

Continue to part two and read about the shirt-ripping man...