After a 3 year break that seemed like an eternity. Abu Dhabi’s premier Electronic Dance Music festival and an offshoot of the main festival in the United Kingdom, Creamfields Abu Dhabi made its much anticipated return to the UAE on the 8th of December 2017 for its 7th edition at the du Arena located on the Yas Island, with a star studded line-up consisting of heavyweights like Above and Beyond, deadmau5 and Axwell /\ Ingrosso.
Since its inaugural edition in 2009 at Abu Dhabi’s swanky Emirates Palace, the festival has gone from strength to strength over the years bringing big names like Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Tiësto, Hardwell, Calvin Harris, Sasha, Marco Carola and many more to the UAE, changing the landscape of nightlife in the UAE.
Coming back to the business at hand, Creamfields Abu Dhabi every year is organised by FLASH Entertainment, probably the country’s biggest event company having booked A-listers like Madonna, Olly Murs, Coldplay, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Black Sabbath ,Eminem, Rihanna, The Prodigy and many more over the years. No really, FLASH is that good.
Being the premier event company in the UAE, the average party goer would expect nothing less than the perfect event to experience and oh boy did Flash deliver big time. A vast general admission area, a standing VIP platform, a VIP Lounge, elevated tree houses on both sides for a bird’s eye view of the stage. Furthermore a Village area just outside the main stage featured a smaller stage managed by UAE’s only Electronic Dance Music station Dance 97.8 FM. The Village area consisted of a bar, F&B Stations and a hookah lounge for attendees to chill before entering the main stage area.
Starting off the night was FLASH’s resident Ahmed Ajam a.k.a MadJam. His vast experience within the clubbing scene over the years ensured that he set the right mood for the following artists on the bill.
Performing next was Locally Based Shyam Parmar and Mark Pickup who are known as locally recognised LIVE duo ‘Arcade 82’. With Shyam on the Vocals and Mark Pickup on decks/drumpad, it gave a different perspective of how artists would perform live on stage.
The next artist, also a duo would be a much more recognizable name to people in India having performed at the Sunburn Festival for the last two years running. Olly Wood and Greg Stainer collectively known as ‘Hollophonic’ were next.
Post Hollaphonic a 10 minute changeover ensued, setting up the stage for Above and Beyond. The British ‘cry-trance’ group was represented by Paavo Siljamäki. Their hit singles like ‘Northern Soul’, ‘Tightrope’, ‘A Thing Called Love’, ‘Sun & Moon’, and new music fresh out of the studio to be included in their album ‘Common Ground’ were played which ensured that every single soul in the venue sung along to their music.
deadmau5 was next, starting off without the mau5-head (well he did wear it, we’ll come to that later). Funny visuals, great music, Joel had it all. Then came the moment that every avid deadmau5 fan awaits, ‘Strobe’ was played, a huge cheer from the crowd, then went on the mau5 head with the crossed eyes. A similar reaction from the crowd ensued later on when Joel dropped his collaboration with Rob Swire , it was ‘Veldt’ incase someone forgot.
Finishing off the night was Ex-Swedish House Mafia and Swedish Super-duo Axwell /\ Ingrosso. Starting off with their foot stomper ‘How Do You Feel Right Now’, Axwell and Sebastian then played tracks from their respective labels Axtone and Refune and ofcourse, whats an Axwell /\ Ingrosso set without some ‘Greyhound’, ‘Save The World’, ‘Don’t You Worry Child’, ‘One’ reminiscent of the good old yesteryears of the Swedish House Mafia. Their new single with Canadian singer Trevor Guthrie called ‘Dreamer’ was also played live to the audience and last but not the least albeit a little too early, Axwell /\ Ingrosso made sure that the ‘sun was shining’ over the du Arena to make sure everyone had a night to remember.
To conclude, it was just another year, another Creamfields Abu Dhabi, and another perfect FLASH Entertainment event.
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