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| The Bacardi Black Rock Arena - one of several venues at the Weekender |
Sprawling lawns, vast areas and arenas with open air stages set up, 50 bands from across the country and the world, 7 venues, 12 hours of live music and bar service every day over 3 days, boundary pushing collaborations among the artistes, punctual action with seemingly impeccable management, mellow early winter weather of Pune, food courts selling just the brand of fast food conducive for a rock festival, and no infernal cops anywhere to shut down this experience, even at 1 in the night, a good 2 hours beyond Pune Ma Po's usual crackdown on live venues.
To those of us who perennially complain of a lack of scene, whoever thought Indian rock and Indie music is out in the cold, rejoice, because this is new and promising and probably the best rock festival organized in India on such a huge scale. Mundhwa road in Kalyaninagar was crawling with rock and disco venues during the festival. The Bacardi Black Rock Arena, the Dewarists Stage and the Dewar’s Other Stage were open air venues admirably setup with great lights and sound systems. The green dew laced lawn in front of the Dewarsists stage was lined with mattresses – for a rippling combination of great Indie music played on a low stage, mellow setting sun, sprawled out sitting posture and a cool glass of your poison of choice at your elbow; not that it stopped anyone from getting on their feet in customary fashion later. The Bacardi Black Rock arena was more contemporary, so to speak. High stage, and gravel standing/drinking/moshing area. Ideal if you wanted to kick dust and hurl yourself at some likeminded ‘hurlee’. The bands scheduled for this venue were quite appropriate, keeping in mind the afore mentioned facilities provided.
The first day of the festival saw hard hitting line up consisting of Noiseware, Khiladi, Infernal Wrath, Undying Inc., Demonic Resurrection, Scribe and Bhayanak Maut. A whole afternoon and evening of metal, right from 2.30 PM till 9.30 PM. Regardless of the time you arrived, you’d always be welcomed with that distinctive metal concert arena breeze with dissolved molecules of various alcohol patterns, and essences of burnt herbs, combined with the force of the bass thudding out at you from the towering speakers erected on either side of the stage.
Scribe & Infernal Wrath at the Bacardi Black Rock Arena
Vishwesh of Scribe was as entertaining as ever – from singing parodied lyrics to a Bollywood song turning it into a song of passionate yearning for Meshuggah to evicting raucous laughter from the gathered crowd with his occasional wisecrack. Rum glasses were in the air at most times spilling merrily across the moshing multitude. For their last song, scribe invited all the members of the bands for the evening to come on stage and start a mosh pit, and challenged the audience to do better. That resulted in a wild rejuvenation of the drunk and the stoned and a massive pit which engulfed almost the entire area between the stage and the sound console. Also not to be missed was the sight of a human battering ram charging from the sound console at the head bangers assembled dutifully at the foot of the stage.
Madness reigns in general
Despite previous experiences of concerts going beyond scheduled times, this line up finished their respective sets well in time for Pentagram’s hip hop set at the Hard Rock Café. Pentagram, clearly not too keen on playing hip-hop to the horde of jumping black T shirts played a set combined of covers and some of their own infectious brand of music. They started a little late but had the hard rock crowd jumping like pogo sticks in no time. During the show, Vishal, obviously unimpressed with the audience's response to his call of 'You motherfuckers got to make it right" spotted Vishwesh of scribe in the crowd, tossed the mike to him and said the stimulating words 'Vishwesh, show them how it’s done man'. What followed was a full throated growl repeating those very words, blaring out on the HRC speakers with Randolph Shiraz and Papal backing it up impromptu. Needless to say, crowd performance improved tenfold instantly, while Vishal climbed up the lights scaffolding and egged everyone on. What an evening.
The after party was scheduled to come to life after the events of each evening at the Club Invasion, right across the road from the earlier venues and right next to the Eristoff’s wolves den (which later featured Asian Dub Foundation on the closing night, among others). The club on Friday night was pretty dead to be honest; the rockers were mostly socializing while two (probably) stoned dudes were swaying in a near empty disco, while the German DJ Moog played on passionately, regardless of attendance.
Various stages - the Pune hard rock cafe, Chillies restaurant grounds, and open air stages set up on the lawns neighboring HRC. Great sound, fantastic lights and despite so many bands playing and many of them simultaneously not a single show seemed to have too few people attending.
Pentagram at the Eristoff's Wolves' Den
The line up on the second day could be described as having been rather mouthwatering: Hard Rock Café hosting Something Relevant, Dischodian, The Mavyns and The Circus; The Dewarists Stage hosting Airport, Ankur & Ghalat family, Swarathma, Susheela Raman and Indian Ocean; Bay Beat Collective, Jalebee Cartel, Reverend Sound system and Pentagram at the Eristoff’s Wolves Den and to wind it all up -DJ Nihal and Shaa’ir + Func at the after party in Club Invasion. Due to the primary disadvantage of being a human being – that of being able to be in one place at one time – I wasn’t able to see all these people turn the winter air into media of notes and chords, but what I did manage to witness was quite fantastic.
Swarathma, who love playing in the city of Pune, started off playing to a crowd mostly lying sprawled around on the grass and the mattresses, and even the hefty bouncers on duty were directing standing audience away from the front of the stage in their inherent ominously polite manner. Not for long though – once the request went out to all deviyon and sajjano to rise and raise their hands in jovial devotion hardly anyone was left sitting. Swarathma played some of their most popular songs and a few new ones like Mukhote and Baawra. Not to mention the cult ‘Yeshu Allah Krishna’ performed with a new intro. The high point of the set was the surprise collaboration in the song ‘Ee Bhoomi’ with Vishwesh of Scribe who seemed to be everywhere during this fest! The Ee Bhoomi live version has seen several collaborations with many different artistes including pianists, Rajasthani folk drummers and more, but this collaboration with Vishwesh would rank among the best ones so far. Vishwesh showcased his other talents, rapping his own lyrics while keeping with the theme of Ee Bhoomi – optimism about how this earth can still be a paradise – and later beat-boxing in tandem with drummer Montry and percussionist Pavan. What is heartening is that these collaborations are getting better with time and it looks like we can look forward to much more.
Swarathma and Indian Ocean at the Dewarists Stage
The Raghu Dixit Project performed a teaser at the Dewars Other Stage – an acoustic performance of Mysore se aayi and giving in to public demand, Hey Bhagawan. The crowd at the stage built up in no time, despite the set by RDP being so short. The delightful teaser ended with a promise of a bigger and even better performance at the main Dewarists stage on the final day.
Later, Indian Ocean took the stage to a massive gathering of cheering fans. They performed a typically surreal set, including Bandeh, Maa Rewa, Kandisa, Hille re and songs from the new album Bondhu and Bula Raha. We never tire of watching Indian Ocean live, and the haunting baul tones of Bondhu had the entire audience singing the Bengali lyrics with the band. Not to take anything away from the vocal skill and accomplishment of Himanshu Joshi, but the stage action by the new singer might strike some as being a touch ungainly to the eye, keeping in mind the status Indian Ocean holds in the hearts of their fans.
After all the action, a few of the artistes of the evening settled down on the lawns and began an impromptu jam with classical vocals, guitar and percussion. This attracted the creative attentions of almost everyone around and soon this ensemble was joined by novices and professionals alike. The classical vocalist, guitarist and percussionist of Susheela Raman’s band, Himanshu Joshi, Amit Kilam with his khomok soon joined in to make the gathering more surreal. Singer after singer joined in and sang rural folk songs with everyone else jamming along. Vasu of Swarathma soon joined in with a second khomok and played in tandem with Kilam. Swarathma bassist and town-crier Jishnu joined in performing vocal harmonies to the music and a fairly large crowd of the comfortably numb gathered around to bask in the rustic charm of the music in the moonlit lawn. Eventually this gathering was broken up as it was getting late and the organizers understandably didn’t want a possible scene with the local authorities. Despite a few protests from the onlookers and the musicians, you couldn’t have asked for a better atmosphere.
Artistes jamming away into the night on the lawn after the day's events
Sunday, the third and final day of the fest had loads of mouth-watering and insides-itching-to-attend bands playing across all the venues. Barefaced Liar at the Bacardi Black rock arena played while the sun was shining, but it didn’t appear as though they made much hay. The audience’s response was at best lukewarm to most of their originals, and gave signs of life only when the band did a cover of Voodoo Child. For the record, they also did a Prodigy cover, but it didn’t look like anyone realized that until they were specifically told. “Ohh!”, “Aah!” and “Eh?!” being the gist of most responses to that bit of trivia!
Tough On Tobacco played a tight set to slowly awakening crowd which had begun to build up. They played some of their popular stuff like Drive, Happy and Smoke some ganja – a song which I suspect was instrumental in changing the composition of the air and that of several of the minds in attendance at the Bacardi Black Rock arena. Junkyard Groove was next up, and they came up on stage to a crowd high on ganja and expectation. JYG hasn’t performed much in these parts, and what with their ever increasing popularity, the junta turned out in scores. Many at the show might’ve been first-timers at a JYG show, but that didn’t stop anyone from singing along with the band on almost all the songs they played. Speaks volumes when referring to the context of Indian bands not being able to reach out and people not responding all that positively to non-covers by independent outfits. What stood out additionally and will be remembered was Ameeth’s obnoxiously hilarious stage acts between songs. Not that any of it got in the way of interacting with the crowd!
Zero and Ravi Chari: Christmas in July
Zero, the penultimate act of the night at this venue took stage to wild cheer and applause, and they didn’t disappoint with performance or with surprise collaboration acts. Christmas in July featured Ravi Chari on the Sitar. Initially seated respectably on a chair on stage while playing out the opening riffs of Christmas (to tremendous applause), Ravi Chari soon left traditional sitar poses behind, stepped up next to Warren, placed a confident foot over the stage monitor not unlike Bono himself, balanced the sitar on his knee and played probably the fastest sitar anyone in attendance might ever have experienced. Simultaneously head banging, wild hair waving all over the place, rock star like. ‘Twas fantastic to the eye and ear; lovely bit of collaboration.
Meanwhile The Raghu Dixit Project was winding up the celebrations at the Dewarists stage which had earlier featured The Magic Numbers, Faridkot, Ashu and the Petri Dish and much loved Pink Noise (who for some reason were given only a quarter of an hour to perform, much to the disappointment of the people gathered on the lawns in front)
RDP performed their second set of delightful fusion music - playing several songs to a large big and very responsive crowd. They played quite a few new songs, in addition to the songs of the wonderful first album released couple of years earlier. Hey bhagawan, Mysore Se aayi, Gudugudiya sethi nodo and much more. The stage act of the RDP has improved considerably since the days of the Myspace Pune launch days. There was distinctively more interaction onstage between the members of the band, Gaurav Vaz also chipped in with crowd interaction along with Raghu.
The Magic Numbers and The Raghu Dixit Project at the Dewarists Stage
After attending a festival this huge, and after all the appreciation of the way everything happened on time without any visible hassles, it’s almost unbelievable that once upon a time bands had to play 10 covers and 4 originals to stay alive in the circuit. All the bands out here were playing their own music with very few covers, but the audience involvement and attendance was fantastic. I read somewhere that close to 10000 people would have attended from across the country. What with the best Indian bands coming from all over the country and several bands from abroad as well flown in to headline the festival, this was an occasion begging to be basked in, not to be missed and to be caught on YouTube later, if possible! Here's to wishing that this is the first of countless such festivals. This vibe and experience is just what the bands in India need, and what the hundreds and thousands of fans deserve.
All photographs used with permission of Indiecision
