I dreamed of Warung

The lazy pale sky blanketed the lush green hills that roll down to meet the warm Atlantic Ocean.  Lithe bodies that were made for the sun lay up and down the sand like exotic birds hidden in the deep forest.  The skin vibrantly reflects off the white sand and the eyes transmit messages to the brain – neurotransmitters flood the synapse.  Rhythmic waves of energy pulsate through the water and down through the earth.  The way the people move seems like an illusion – but the warm breeze on my skin knows it’s all real.  

The short slumber of the nocturnal clubland behemoth was all but a glorified disco nap.  Perhaps if Warung was human she would ask herself “did I sleep?”  Yet, Warung isn’t bothered by the upkeep of sleep and wellbeing, and by 4pm on Saturday, Nov. 18th 2017, history would be made. The mysterious beach club opened its tall wooden doors to All Day I Dream.  

The Dreamers came from all over Brazil, like birds migrating to warmer climates, flying across long stretches of land in search of warmer winds.  They drove down from Curitiba and up from Porto Alegre.  From Florianópolis to São Paulo, they all came.  The energy in the beach city of Itajaí began to build as the morning slipped…into afternoon.  

Two Dreamers driving a convertible came flying down the lush hill leading to Praia Brava.  A gust of warm southern hemisphere wind had brought them, their long brown hair flowed wild in the music echoing from the speakers. The driver knew how to move while handling a vehicle, failing to contain her hands from leaving the steering wheel.  She let her arms fly, pumping to the sky – right in line with the beat.  This is Praia Brava – Santa Catarina – South Brazil. 

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Never before had Warung opened for a day party.  Of coarse it had stayed open all morning and into the sweaty afternoon.  In the past four years the club had to adapt to the tightening grip of the local sprawl of development.  Lest the children of Warung inner-weave with the normal tourists on the ever more populated Brava Beach, the club now shuts its doors not long after the sun rises over the Atlantic.  But from every epic tale comes a new beginning.  These were days of transformation, for none of us can ever stay the same.  

It was day two of the Warung Birthday double header.  Friday was just an ordinary day at the club, with one of Warung’s annual ‘residents’ and favorites – Solomun, who played all night in the main room.  And thus, as one party ended, another began.  Warungers develop a special love for their DJs, and it takes just one party to ignite that love, if the recipe is right.  Somewhere as that morning ended a man smiled.  Perhaps the people could already feel the positive vibrations moving towards the club.  Lee Burridge was coming.  Flying in on the magic cloud of All Day I Dream, which had completed a tour of the planet, showering love and light on parties from Barcelona to San Francisco.  Soon the people of Warung gleaming smiles would be as bright as the Southern Brazilian summer sun.  

The cars leaked down into the neighborhood, up the winding road to Praia Brava, and through the banana trees and agave leaves. Faint bass lines could be heard coming from back seats while bodies outstretched moving with the warm breeze.  Many souls were desperate from the party the night before.  Wanting, needing, searching for more…and more…and more.   whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp…

Warmer then the tropic air, the distant song of house music, flowing out onto the surface of the ocean, causing a gentle touch of ripples to fade into the horizon, drawing the dancers closer and closer.  On most November days the Santa Catarina sun would be bright and thick with humidity, changing skin colors in mere minutes.  Transferring heat to warm the languid water of the sea by midday.  But this wasn’t most days, and the sun was blanketed behind an eerie layer of grey.  There were no open spaces to give way to blue or fluffy clouds.  The air was warm as the sky laughed at the lost clubbers its midst.  

As lazy as the sky, my girlfriend and I eventually left our apartment in the late afternoon.  We planned to catch the second half of Lost Desert, before Lee began at 8pm. Yokoo – Lost Desert – Lee Burridge: the set times were posted and Lee Burridge was to play the final block from 8pm – 12am.  For a seasoned All Day I Dreamer like myself, usually arriving an hour or so before Lee begins is an ideal way to save stamina and arrive just as the party is really beginning to heat up.  Those were the early days of All Day I Dream, performed from LA rooftops, Lee Burridge showcasing the afternoon as the sun set over the city.  The All Day I Dream world tour saw Lee share the bill equally with Yokoo and Lost Desert.  Lost in the past, I would soon be caught up with the Present. 

As I walked through the doors I could feel the sound go deep.  The vibrations went beyond my body, into places hidden deep inside my soul.  The sounds lifted my spirt to fly upwards and onto the dance floor.  Every step I took the beat went further within, and as I moved closer to the sound, I saw and felt the moving force inside the Garden.  As we approached the Garden we could see it wasn’t Lost Desert or Yokoo, as the schedule said it would.  It was only 6:30, the bats had yet to awaken, and already there was no mistaking the clean shining mind of the nomadic mystic DJ himself – Lee Burridge was on the decks.  

The Garden of Waring is downstairs, open on all sides to a wooden deck, and covered with triangular, cabana style roof made of wooden beams, with a thick straw like material closing the gaps.  Behind the DJ booth a newly added giant dragon looms, the signature of Warung.  In the busy summer months, Warung’s main room is packed, and the downstairs Garden overflows with people, the decks surrounding the dance floor vibrating with movement.  

The Garden was customized for All Day I Dream.  Flowers hung from the rafters and the DJ booth was filled with vibrant bromélias, pink flowers against bright green stems.  The pots were removed from the hanging flowers, leaving the cylinder shapes of the dirt, with exposed roots and earth dangling above the dance floor.  The plants swung in the air from the speakers, the naked roots pulling our attention upwards.

As this was the first ever ‘day party’ at Warung, and that few had been to All Day I Dream in South Brazil, the downstairs Garden was sparse when I arrived.  Perhaps people waited for the sun to set before arriving.  The wooden decks surrounding the Garden were all but empty. Beneath the Balinese style roof the energy was seething.  Intimacy without sacrificing intensity.

The party the day before left thousands of clubbers scattered in the pale morning light.  Many of those couldn’t resist another moment without the rumble of the speakers bellowing sounds into the heightened sense of their temporal lobes.  They were hungry, and waited until the afternoon came so that they could return to the Temple by the sand.  These were easy to spot, dressed in dark cloths, sticky with sweat, sunglasses attempting to hide the crazy stirring in their eyes.  They moved with a determined, steady repetitive dance, tribal in the pattern of their movements.  As Lee melodized the Garden, some wearing black began to look around, searching for something more, something harder perhaps, a habituated techno itch gnawing at their subconsciousness.  

The air shimmered above the dance floor where the music sank in into the lofty space above.  I kept gazing upwards between the wood rafters that connected to the thatch roof – triangular spaces opened revealing the verdant giant banana leaves, intermixed with peroba trees and bright cuartec leaves, the colors of the subtropical forest calming the mind.  The hazy grey sky behind the dark deep brown of the teak wood, with vibrant green plants bright against the opaque grey.  The juxtaposition between the grey, the green, and the wood, created an incandescent air.  The lingering unseen sun rays penetrated all the same.  The dance floor became hotter by the moment, and beads of sweat dripped down faces all around.  The people moved greedily to the beat, and the music became lighter, dreamier, whisking the travelers out into the open space above, while the pulsating sounds of the base lurked in the background.  The Indian instruments and percussion were eloquently interlaced between the melodies and drums, awakening the after partiers from their daze.  The music inhabited me, and dance moves manifested from my deepest desires.  

Lee Burridge is sagacious in building the set, and as the time began to fade away like a stone to dust, moment by moment the energy elevated us all.  Lost in the never-never land of Warung.  As Lee layered the sounds, track after track, so the raucous crowd began to settle – all began dancing in synchrony.  We moved together behind the magnificent conductor of his magical symphony.  

Lee brought the music down to it’s most abstract melodies, silencing the layer of bass, leaving nothing but the perennial note echoing beyond trees, floating into the tormented grey sky.  The marathoners began to drift away, eyes closing, swaying more gently and uniquely to the uplifting beat.  A flash of transformation shook the dance floor.  Lee could feel the love.  The movements were changing.  With alacrity a gentle smile lifted the corners his eyes.

Lee Burridge had us right where he wanted.  From the roots of those dreamy, melodic sounds, came cheers and anticipation. A pause in the music brought a halt in the movement while the staccato notes were left to echo through the Garden.  Then, like a Jaguar appearing from the jungle, Lee brought the laconic bass line back.  Bass-line leading to human eruption.  Call it techno, call it house, it doesn’t matter – this was the yin and the yang, the dark and the light.  Lee brought back the melodies, sounds from sitars and bansuri instruments blended with the primal element of the bass. The chanting voices interlaced in it all – we all began to dream.  

The malleable crowd rose to the sounds Lee created.  His eyes went wild as the energy continued to rise.  The underlying baseline juxtaposed with the desert born rhythms gave anew found ardor to the crowd.  We all continued to coalesce – Lee, the crowd, the music – we were one musical force of love.  

And so it built and built, the underlying beat slowly drifting away, hiding behind the melodies, inducing hypnotized minds with bodies swaying to the music.  Smiling and laughing at what was taking place, the bass would come back again; slow, sultry, and steady.  Goosebumps trickled up my spine.  

The energy formed like a cumulus cloud that showered notes of rain down upon the people of Warung.  The crowd was alive.  The Garden began to expand.  The energy kept building and erupting into the rainforest beyond.  The Love was everywhere.  People were kissing and hugging all around, dancing like their spirit had broken open. Lee… Lee kept weaving the tracks, as the bird makes the nest, melding the sounds seamlessly. People continued to rush under the Garden roof – fresh clubbers mixed with the after after ravers, and there was harmony between us all.  

Lee reveled in his creation, arms uplifting with the rising music. Time completely fell away, and the earth rotated around the sun.  The portal opened.  The slowly building cumulation of those melodic sounds, that driving beat, all came to a magnificent explosion, sonic wind moving over Warung, arms outstretched a magnificent finale to the three hour set.  Screams could be heard from the fishing boats out to sea.  People bent down pounding hands on the deck, emotions rumbling from within, the entire Garden was shaking. The ground vibrated from beneath the earth, and people jumped and united.  The final celebration went on for an eternity. The Brazilian passion was set free on that day, celebrating with screams of love and triumph – all unified for All Day I Dream. 

Lee Burridge changed history on that lazy November day. Warung would never be the same. Nor would I.