Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Rockin' in the park
|
The Bangalore Habba Rock Show could have done with more publicity
|
It would help if future shows had a bigger stage. — Photo: Murali Kumar K.
THE SECOND edition of the Bangalore Habba Rock Show was billed to be a big event. Big event? Well, it was a far cry from that. Five days, 11 bands and 12,000 watts of amazing rock music rocked Cubbon Park. So who were the takers? Evening walkers, hawkers, rubbernecks, and anyone curious about rock was there.
Kick-off
Day One saw the bands Yell'o and STOMP (Still Trying Out Music Professionally) take stage. Yell'o kicked off the proceedings with The Doors' popular "Roadhouse Blues". The vocalist tried in vain to get the crowd to sing along. In response, some in the crowd wanted Kannada songs. With the virtuosity of Praveen David on lead guitar, Yell'o made their way through some classic tracks like "War Pigs", "Perfect Strangers", "Breaking The law", "Smoke On The Water" and "Crazy Train", and played one instrumental self-composition, "Harmonic Imbalance".
STOMP, with members of the erstwhile Angeldust and Cryptic, lived up to expectations and they belted out note-perfect renditions of popular tracks by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Testament and Deep Purple. The band, with its talented musicians, showcased some well-crafted originals like "Silent Bridge", "Train Of Angels" and "Stomp".
Evening blues
Day Two had a dismal crowd turnout, thanks to the Monday morning (carried over to the evening) blues. Black Earth started its set with "Ytse Jam," a Dream Theater song. The band lacked presence with the sound not being `tight' enough. But its keyboardist, Jason, is one gifted lad to watch out for. He handled all the guitar parts on the keyboard with absolute ease. Even as the so-called rockers who turned up to watch the show, munched on time-pass peanuts and chaat, Parousia set up its sound for some real good music to flow. This band featured Jason, the afore-mentioned Black Earth keyboardist. The bands this group covered included Toto, Metallica, Dream Theater, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Liquid Tension Experiment. Unfortunately, the band had only one original on its playlist.
Irritated eardrums
Day Three saw Fahrenheit do a punctual sound check by 7 p.m. The crowd on this day had swelled by about 50 per cent, thanks to faithful followers. As soon as the first strains of its music echoed from the speakers, rock aficionados ran for cover. This band was an absolute letdown with its off-key vocals, and some very irritating bass playing that was abnormally loud. Clearly, the band needed to do its homework. Midrange was the band to follow. These guys are veterans of the music scene in Bangalore. This show was its first gig for the new season and hence it did an all-covers set to play safe. The repertoire included "Sweet Child Of Mine", "Get Over It" and "Comfortably Numb".
Day Four was the day all metal heads were waiting for. Mutiny, turned up for their sound check sans bassist. With no more time to be lost, and the crowd getting eager to headbang, Mutiny kicked off its set without their bassist.
It looked like it had major plans to be the next Judas Priest tribute band, covering crowd pullers such as "Night Crawler" and "The Sentinel". Half way through the set, the all-but-forgotten bassist turned up to handle the low-end duties. The next band on stage was Threinody, arguably the pioneers of heavy metal in Bangalore.
It was the only three-piece band to have featured at the Habba Rock Show and was all fired up right from the word go.
Threinody has a unique style of picking regular Rock songs and giving them a metal feel. It displayed this with its rendition of Pink Floyd's "In The Flesh". This band kept the crowd engaged with its brilliantly constructed set-list of both covers and originals.
Sidharth on bass and vocals did an amazing job without messing up either of his duties. Premik on lead guitar and Satish on drums absolutely rocked.
The finale
Day Five had three bands shake the foundation of the King Edward statue. Galeej Gurus, who've got a new keyboardist, played some brilliant progressive funk, thanks to the spot-on drum 'n' bass co-ordination between the Harris twins (Matthew on bass and Nathan on drums). The band covered Eric Clapton, Deep Purple and Extreme. Its self-compositions, "Loser" and "Fly Away", were catchy to say the least. Anand on guitars and vocals was a revelation.
Aatma, with Raman on the sax and Bali of Yell'o on vocals, was popular with the crowd. Sandeep on the fretless bass kept the momentum going. "Too Much Juice", "Fool's Gold", "Torn Apart" and "Pokhran" were among the originals the band played. Synapse, a band that has been around for a long time now, recently found success with its runners-up performance at the Campus Rock Idols in Mumbai. The band took stage with a big fan following cheering them on. The band is a massive crowd-puller as it knows exactly the set-list demands and had the jam-packed crowd headbanging in frenzy. Synapse closed this year's edition of the Bangalore Habba Rock Show with Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water".
The event was coordinated and managed by rockherald.com, and it went well even if some issues need attention.
The organisers have to be pushier in terms of publicity and the bands told to play a 50-50 set (one part originals and one part covers). And a bigger stage is a must at any cost.
V. ABHISHEK
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
