Author Archives: Bharath Bevinahally

Sharanya Nair, Bharath Bevinahally, Sohan Maheshwar, Rohan Arthur and Uday ShankerSharanya Nair, Bharath Bevinahally, Sohan Maheshwar, Rohan Arthur and Uday Shanker

While not filled to the brim with mystery as last time, the lineup at this edition of The GoMad Festival was interesting and so was the approach the organizers had decided to take. This time bands had one-hour slots with half-hour soundchecks between performances! As the morning chill dissipated slightly on Day 1 with the arrival of the tardy and patchy sun, the festival kicked off with the rather interesting band from Chennai. The F16s were a perfect pick-me-up for people who made it to their set at the Blubaloo stage at 11 a.m. While we weren’t surprised that they claim to gain influence from bands like The Black Keys, The Arctic Monkeys, Jet and The Strokes they do…

Original Indian rock has had quite a chequered history. Several acts have made bright starts only to sputter out into oblivion a few years later. Several acts have appeared promising but have faded away before anything substantial materialized. But then there are some other acts that have persevered through a fair share of ups and downs, and found their niche in terms of their sound, presence and appeal. And then there’s Indus Creed. Quite easily the big daddy of the rock music scene in India, the band that released Rock n’ Roll Renegade (As Rock Machine, in 1989), when this writer was barely out of the diaper stage, hit big time with its appearances on big music…

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Day 3 of The Mad Festival was the final day in this glorious mélange of Music, Arts and Dance. While there was a small increase in the crowd, a few familiar faces were notably absent on an early Saturday morning, possibly nursing hangovers. If Day 1 was the day of the big-name acts (Indian Ocean, Raghu Dixit, Swarathma to name a few) and Day 2 the day of alternative, left-of-centre acts (Sulk Station, Bicycle Days, Schizophonic), Day 3 was easily the most versatile in the sheer range of acts lined up. Confession time, folks – we almost missed Spud in the Box. In our endeavour to eat some authentic Ooty breakfast, we traversed through some narrow…

      After another dreary day at work, I was looking forward to Hard Rock Café and the Thursday gig featuring Agam, a Bangalore based ‘Carnatic Rock’ band. I’d heard a bit about the band, mostly good things but hadn’t actually seen them perform in the flesh before and was looking forward to listening to a fresh sound. In the melee, I happened to catch up with a friend, let’s call him Mamooty for the remainder of this review, since the boys from Agam had a particular fondness for Kerala, seeing as some of them are from Kerala. As the band took the stage, Mamooty was in the middle of devouring a burger after another…