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Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

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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.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

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 manage to make it interesting. ‘Nuke’ was played early on in the set and while it is one of their lesser catchy tunes, it served well as a prelude to the sort of sound we were to hear and boy, were we impressed. They went through their set with ease and minimal banter and the smattering of a crowd was visibly enjoying. ‘My Shallow Lover’ is a real body jerker, by which we mean it makes you twitch in time with its cutesy rhythm and slightly incomprehensible lyrics – a requirement in this sort of musical corner, we think. ‘Light bulbs’ is a really interesting song as well and all in all we were the better for staying throughout the band’s set that morning. They were our dark horse for the day. What a great start!

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

In our elephantine memory, Girish and the Chronicles has never disappointed and if they ever manage to in the future, it’ll be a dark day indeed. They were the first band on the Calaloo stage and they set the bar real high. The weather and everything synced to create a wonderful atmosphere that the band thrived in – playing originals and covers with very apparent ease. Girish did jokingly comment that he was reluctant to play his own originals because they were “too hard to sing”. Led Zep and AC/DC covered to perfection on a beautiful Friday morning at a hill station – you couldn’t ask for much more.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

The Down Troddence, Bangalore/Kerala based Groove metal band, the first metal band of the festival of the six lined up in total, took the Blubaloo stage next. The festival , which had just one metal act (Kryptos) last year, had decided to cater better to metalheads by adding more metal bands to the roster. We believe that listening to some great metal in the morning is the best way to wake up and stay awake, and TDT delivered in spades. With tracks like ‘KFC’ and ‘Muck Fun Mohan’ (go back and read that again), they set the foundation for what was to be an amazing day. One song that stood out in particular was ‘Naagavalli’, a track named after Malayalam actress Shobana’s titular character from the thriller Manichitratazhu. Incidentally, Shobana and her dance troupe would be the last act we would see at the Festival. TDT ended their set with crowd favorite ‘Shiva’ and we hastily made our way through the woods to catch De’Sat who up next at the Calaloo.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Though it was still quite early in the day for heavy music, De’Sat, Bangalore-based Prog metal group, did not seem to show that in the least bit, brimming with energy from the first track ‘Run Too’, an arabesque tune with generous helpings of heavy guitar riffs. Another track that stood out was ‘Power’, which had Srikiran doing some amazing work behind the drums. Their set also included a well-executed cover of Lamb of God’s ‘Laid to Rest’.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Meanwhile, Blubaloo was occupied by Sean Roldan and Friends. They are yet another act emerging out of Chennai that has a folksy Tamil soul with generous dollops of western instrumentalization layered on top. The music’s infectious, likeable and something that can easily be a crowd puller. Their set though, was fairly early, and at the outset didn’t have much of a crowd to really build the kind of madness that one has come to expect from them. The jazzy, funky, basswork of Mani fits in brilliantly with Praveen’s percussive section and provided a solid rhythm section for improvisation on the slide as well as Sean aka Raghavendra’s impressive vocals. An attempt to infuse some rap into proceedings began interestingly but ended up crowding the sound and messing the vibe up. ’Mayakura Poovasam’, probably their most popular song was by far the pick of the setlist with an encore being performed once the crowd had built up. Other picks for this writer included ‘Inbai Velai’ and ‘Mandira’, which had a nice old Tamil film song vibe to it. All in all, it was an interesting setlist that could have used a little more energy from the performers as well as the audience.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

There were more amazing riffs to be unleashed at the Calaloo as Blind Image, a Chennai-based Groove metal band, was up after De’Sat. They got right into it with ‘Paroxysm’, a track which shows off frontman Noble Luke’s ability to growl almost endlessly. They were very tight and were performing as one unit, which did not come as a surprise really. ‘Glitch in the System’, a socio-political number, saw Noble using the delay on his vocals to great effect, aided by Siva on bass wielding a Spector bass. Our usual metalhead refrain of ‘Needs more double bass and guitar solos’ didn’t apply because we just didn’t feel that way with Blind Image. They felt just right. For the next track, ‘More Than Human’, Noble showed us that he could actually sing clean vocals quite well. As you may gather from the title this track was about Transhumanism (the first time we are ever using this word), quite a deep subject, and had some great lyrics as well.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Over at the Blubaloo, Clown with a Frown were all set to be a whirlwind of energy. Their energetic vocalist can pack a punch with her voice and her onstage presence. They made a slumbering audience rise and march to the frontlines unasked and it was all thanks to Abby who was pushy enough to be cute and didn’t overdo it. CWAF played it old school. They played their hearts out and the audience automatically gravitated towards the front. They had a four-piece brass section playing with them and that only served to enhance their already sharp, tight sound. OCs ‘Cool Machine’, ‘Escape’ and ‘Dirty Paradise’ warmed the crowd up plenty and just when another original, ‘Dreams’, was getting interesting, the sound cut out. The band continued playing and earned several esteem points because they didn’t miss a beat. The vocalist even got the crowd to sing along! ‘Groove Machine’ is by far their most entertaining song; the chorus hits the nail on the head and the well-timed break before the catchy bassline really shows practiced timing and a genuine interest in being entertaining. They ended with a couple of covers – Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ and James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Blues Conscience were over at Calaloo. Dressed in dapper matching suits with top-hats to boot, the Chennai-based band were the first blues band to grace Calaloo on Day 1. Their set was a mixture of blues standards and originals, mostly taken from their debut album Down and Dirty (and were mostly about sex). They played a cover of ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ with some improv’d lyrics about drummer Neil Smith thrown in for good measure. ‘Morning After’, a song about well…the morning after, was next. Vocalist Anek claimed that people usually had sex after watching a BC gig, though empirical data from this writer suggests otherwise. Their OCs revisited standard blues tropes but they did so with some panache and verve. Cream’s ‘Strange Brew‘ segued into a Buddy Guy song before they performed the not-so-subtle ‘Big Bamboo’ which was about what you’d usually see in your email’s spam folder. The song was choc-a-block with bad euphemisms but provided the crowd a chance to giggle at the groan-worthy anatomical references. Anek even walked amongst the audience making impromptu verse about a few male members’ (no pun here) shortcomings. Innuendo!

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Parvaaz is a band that is quickly becoming the talk of town. Their brand of Kashmiri/Urdu psychedelia has found several followers and for good reason. At the Blubaloo right after CWAF, Parvaaz began with a longish sound check (as did several other acts to be honest). Vocalist Khalid’s power was apparent right at the outset with ‘Marika’. A constant throughout Parvaaz’s set was Fidel’s understated, steady and solid bass playing that fit in tightly with Sachin’s kick drum. Crowd favourite ‘Itne Arse ke Baad’ followed with quite a few people singing along. The sound mixing was horrible though (to be fair, the mixing was off the mark for most of the acts), and Sachin’s delicate touches on the otherwise excellent ‘Long Song’ were barely audible. Parvaaz’s shortish set list ended with a song off of their upcoming album. All in all, Parvaaz have been evolving with every gig we’ve seen, and the rhythm section is particularly strong. While the textures added by Kashif’s bluesy guitar playing and other ambient guitar sounds are interesting, a strong sound system, probably aided by a sound dude at the console who understands the intricacies of Parvaaz’s sound may just do the trick in the future.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

A neat little coincidence – Blues Conscience had an ad-libbed verse in ‘Big Bamboo’ (yes, that song) about a ‘lady in black’ in the crowd. She happened to be the gorgeous Tanya Nambiar who was the vocalist of Delhi-based alt rockers – Gravy Train, the next band on stage. Ironically they began their set with a song called ‘I Don’t Want to Be Here’. GT played a couple of covers as well – a sultry version of The Police hit ‘Roxanne’ as well as a misfired rendition of Lenny Kravitz’s ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’ during which the guitars were totally off. ‘Money Man’ – an original, lead to some self-effacing humour and Delhi jokes from the bassist Akshay. One noticeable aspect of the band was that their live act seemed manufactured which also, in our opinion, contributed to the lack of “tightness” of their sound. They played a few more lackluster originals to close out their set. Fizzle.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

“All the good bands are from Chennai, man!” – overheard at MAD. One wouldn’t disagree after Grey Shack’s powerful performance. This 4-piece from Chennai turned it up all the way to 11 in their noisy set at Blubaloo. Drawing from influences such as AC/DC and Jet, Grey Shack believe in pure, unadulterated rock. Driven by Vikram Vivekanand’s riffs, GS bought the house down with great arena-rock originals such as ‘She Bites’, the Hunter S Thompson inspired ‘Gonzo’ and also ‘Beautiful Man’, which had a neat little reggae bridge. Beyond the halfway mark, their songs did get repetitive with similar sounding chord structures and vocal lines. Their set infused some energy, which the audience carried forward till the night’s end. I hope no whammy bars and wah-wah pedals were harmed during this gig.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

After the success of their single ’You Say’, Black Letters, an energetic post punk/alternative band from Kerala has generated a lot of attention and curiosity. The sun had already set a few minutes ago, and the early dusk was rife with anticipation. The band seemed to already have garnered a large following, and these fans were cheering right from the start of the short set. Black Letters’ music is distinctly new American, with vocals delivered in flawless style, true to their chosen genre. The sound, however, was below par, but they managed to do a tight and entertaining set. Watch out for their album launch, which they claim is around the corner.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Of all the acts on Day 1, the most incongruous was probably 1001 Ways. Helmed by an a kindly looking gentleman named Tobias Huber with impressively tweaked facial hair and an almost incomprehensible accent, we didn’t know what to expect when he came onstage at the Blubaloo. Sean Roldan and Friends and were playing with him and that tempered things for the positive slightly but all that went away quickly. To expect technical proficiency from this bad – or lyrical prowess for that matter – is folly. You could tell from Tobias’s beatific smile that this band was more about the message – spreading peace, love and (non-musical) harmony – than the music. To be fair, it did make for an eclectic mix of the tabla, the drumset and the layering of the violin over it, not to mention some very interesting plaintive violin solos. The song ‘Gandhi’ boasts a backing track of the Mahatma’s voice and had some nice elements of world music as did the other songs but the simplistic lyrics, unimpressive singing and seemingly roughshod effect overall fell short of pleasing as much as the rest of the performances in the day. Especially when the raucous sounds of what appeared to be unadulterated fun found its way over from Live Banned‘s set at the Calaloo.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Live Banned has quickly become one of the more entertaining acts on the scene and for good reason – especially at a music festival with a large-ish, fairly ‘happy’ crowd. Taking over the reins on the Calaloo stage at a fairly prime slot, Live Banned had the crowd grooving in no time. Their mix of infectious poprockmetalbollywood, terribly funny lyrics and abysmally brilliant costumes (complete this time with Pandava style ‘kiritas’) is a fairly well-oiled machine and didn’t fail to elicit a smile and a guffaw or two (to say the least). Their set was especially energetic, with an emphasis on their ‘social issue’ themed originals. Large swathes of the crowd were jumping up and down throughout their set and first-time listeners lapped their act up with glee. Highlights of the set were their originals ‘Auto Tune’ and ‘Hey Mama’ as well as the usual multi-genre mashup to close out proceedings. While there tends be a bit of sameness once you’ve seen Live Banned a couple of times, they justified their slot and billing this time around.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

The last act on the Calaloo stage on day 1 was Amayama, a Spanish quartet showcasing some Spanish and North African folk music. The crowd was at the pinnacle of excitement at the end of a long day of nice music. Amayama’s set should have been scheduled earlier during the day when the audience were in a better frame of mind to appreciate the nuances of an outlandish music genre. As things transpired, they played a beautiful set to a fast thinning audience.

Day 1 of The GoMad Festival 2013 at FernHills Palace, Ooty

Closing out the proceedings on Day 1 at the Blubaloo and having the job of following a truly mad set by Live Banned, Sabelo Mthembu was the polar opposite of the dance-mosh madness that everyone had just witnessed. Hailing from South Africa, singer-songwriter Sabelo performed his Afro-Soul compositions as the day drew to a close. Singing in Zulu as well as English, Sabelo has this incredible calming texture in his voice. He, along with his backing band, performed originals like – ‘Lay Me Under’ and ‘Darling Why’. The songwriting was simple and pure without any unwanted embellishments. One could see the influence of Gospel music in the lyrics as well as the instrumentation. They covered the Tom Petty classic, ‘Free Fallin’ and got the appreciative audience to sing along as the dwindling crowd slowly made their way back to the their tents in the Ooty cold (oh lord, it was cold!), retrospecting Day 1 and shivering from the cold and anticipation of Day 2.

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Sharanya Nair

Sharanya is a 'writer' and an 'editor'. You know the type. She loves her music too much to share.

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Bhoomi, Caesar’s Palace and TAAQ at the Bengaluru Habba 2012

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First things first – What a venue! The open air amphitheater with the UB City tower looming majestically in the background, and its big bright blue horse logo looking down upon us was quite an amazing sight! And what’s more – for a city perpetually stuck in traffic jams, its habba started dot on time.

The line-up on this particular evening comprised of metal aficionados Bhoomi, the multi-genre, Bangalore based Caesar’s Palace and Bangalore rockers Thermal and a Quarter who made a surprise entry later. All three of them, veterans of the Bangalore rock scene, took to the stage with the promise of a great Saturday evening and they sure lived up to it.

Bhoomi, Caesar's Palace and TAAQ at the Bengaluru Habba 2012

First up was Bhoomi, one of Bangalore’s oldest and best metal acts. They started the evening with their renditions of rock classics like AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, and smoothly drifted into Deep Purple land with Jason Zachariah belting out the keyboard solo to Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star’ and then Tony Das belting out the guitar solo from ‘Burn’, both playing them absolutely perfectly. Though I’m a fan of bands covering songs their own way rather than playing it exactly like it is, I have to admit that Bhoomi’s version of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ did seem a tad out of place and unnecessarily heavy. Tony Das sang the next song ‘Burn it Down’, a very bluesy number with some great guitar licks. This was followed by another cover, Mr. Big’s ‘Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy’.

They finally went into their originals, starting with ‘Inside Story’, a song about the press today and its obsession with the personal lives and affairs of celebrities. It had some great harmonies between Tony and Jason and ended with a really cool guitar-hero solo from the former. Next they played ‘Uncultured’, a song about riots with some really powerful vocals. It had a great vibe and had me replaying “Come help us fight…War without reason” in my head even after they finished. Their last song was ‘The Game’, a song about playing music live (I loved how Sujay bonded with the audience by explaining each song before playing it. Tony thought the better alternative was to chug some beer before each song. I loved that too!) The final track had a great riff, fierce drumming from Kishan Balaji and very eerie vocal harmonies, a powerful song to end their performance.

The band announced their new album set to release later this year, which is being produced by Neil Kernon, of Queensryche and Nevermore fame. When asked if this is the next big step for Indian bands i.e., to have internationally produced and marketed albums, frontman Sujay replies, “Definitely. It’s already happening. Not only international producers, but there are also many Indian producers with very good technical skills. In a few years, the Indian rock scene will be self-sufficient and we won’t have to look to the west for everything.”

Bhoomi, Caesar's Palace and TAAQ at the Bengaluru Habba 2012

Next up were Caesar’s Palace   a rock/funk/blues/soul/jazz/disco/phew! band from Bangalore. They played a very groovy, almost dance-y set of songs. They started with a cover of RHCP’s ‘Readymade’ and soon went into originals starting with ‘3 hour love affair’. The bassist Kenneth Wilson’s getup with his hood and shades (at 8:00 in the night) looked exponentially less pretentious with each note he played as he got them grooves going. ‘Stare’ had some funny lyrics about the cliche` of thinking deeper. Unni, the frontman then announced that they were going to cover Bappi Lahiri and frankly, I was disappointed to know that it was a joke. This is one band that could actually pull it off! They did come close to it though as they played a very 80s disco style original called ‘Get Your Mojo On’. By this time, Kishan Balaji had begun to look like some medieval war hero (read madman) behind his drums. He and Jason Zachariah had battled and conquered every style from heavy metal to funk and now even disco, both of them having played for both Bhoomi and Caesar’s palace.

They continued their brand of funk with a sense of humour with ‘Wol Chod’, which had some cool slap bass and screeching wah. ‘Dreams’ had a groove that got the entire amphitheater swinging their heads from side to side and had some interesting guitar and bass harmonies. The song ended with a great keyboard solo. They then went into a very well done medley of Michael Jackson’s ‘Smooth Criminal’ and ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’ followed by Tenacious D’s ‘Tribute’ that ended with the outro of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ which Unni pulled off perfectly. It was great to see how open minded they are to different genres of music, and not just open minded, but also technically proficient enough to pull off all these varied styles.

Bhoomi, Caesar's Palace and TAAQ at the Bengaluru Habba 2012

The highlight of their performance was ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ by Ray Charles, done in a modern John Mayer style. It ended with a jugalbandi of sorts between the guitar and keys. Jason then played a beautiful piano solo that quietly blended into ‘Swim’, a lovely ballad. They ended with ‘Bittersweet Mind’, a typical 12-bar blues song but with some exciting odd-time signature twists to it.

The night was already going on a high when Unni announced that Thermal and a Quarter was going to take to the stage next and caught everyone by surprise. Thermal and a Quarter or TAAQ , as they are popularly known, consists of Bruce Lee Mani on vocals/guitar, Rajeev Rajagopal on drums and Prakash K.N on bass who happen to be Bangalore’s favourite power trio. This was proven by the fact that despite the fact that it was getting late and terribly cold in the open air amphitheater, the audience didn’t seem to want to be anywhere else.

Bhoomi, Caesar's Palace and TAAQ at the Bengaluru Habba 2012

The trio kick-started their set with ‘Can you fly’, a typical TAAQ song with jazzy guitar playing, great vocals and a powerful rhythm section. Their second song was ‘Meter Mele One and a Half’, about the auto-rickshaw drivers in Bangalore. As Bruce Lee Mani sang about the woes of the average Bangalorean, I couldn’t help thinking that the band’s music IS indeed the sound of urban Bangalore. They do sound like UB City at night, like the traffic jams, like Masala Dosas, like an auto-rickshaw’s faulty meter, like Cubbon Park, IT parks and all things Bangalorean.

They continued in the same spirit with some “tapang-blues” with ‘If Them’ and ‘For the Cat’ which got few audience members even doing some tapang moves in the front row, as Bruce himself cheered them on! Quite impressive on the part of the dancers I’d say, considering the fact that ‘For the Cat’ had many time meter changes.

Their next song ‘Birthday’  was dedicated to Rajeev’s mother as it was the eve of her birthday. And apparently it’s no ordinary birthday song. As Bruce explained, “It’s about wanting my birthday to be a space and not a time. Very deep…very deep!” This was followed by one of my personal favourites – TAAQ’s rendition of ‘Hey Jude’. It amazed me to see how they could take a classic as popular as ‘Hey Jude’, turn it upside down and change it around completely and still maintain the feel of the original. TAAQ’s version of the song has to be heard to be believed! Their last song ‘Chainese Item’ sounded like the theme song to a spy movie where everyone’s running behind a plate of chow mein, for some reason. Or maybe the ridiculously cold breeze was finally getting to me!

Thermal and a Quarter were undoubtedly the heroes of the evening, captivating the audience with their distinct sound and energetic performance. Overall, a great gig and a perfect Saturday evening, all three bands providing three different versions of that rock and roll sound we all love.

The moral of the story at the Habba’s rock fest seemed to be that rock fests no longer mean copying the west. As the three veterans showed us, rock music in Bangalore today is more about ourselves and all the things that affect us in our lives. It’s more personal and easy to relate to than ever. I think it’s this quality of the music that made it so enjoyable and is making an increasing number of people turn up for concerts like these.

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Abhishek Prakash

Abhishek Prakash is a Bangalore based guitarist and is a third of local act Groove Chutney. He loves jazz, street food, Woody Allen movies and often pretends to be a writer.

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