Tag Archives: Eccentric Pendulum

The Rolling Stones Metal Awards at The Blue Frog, Mumbai

The third edition of The Rolling Stones Metal Awards took place at The Blue Frog, a venue that has supported this initiative of celebrating the Indian metal scene by giving bands due credit for the efforts they’ve put in over the year. The event had a total turnout of around 600 people and one could safely say that they all had an amazing night.

Rohit Pereira, popularly known as the P-man, was the emcee for the night who tickled everyones funny bones with his comical antics and witty one-liners. The first band to take to the stage was Pangea the progressive metal band from Bombay consisting of Akshay Rajpurohit, Shadaab Kadri and Kuber Sharma on guitars (all seven string guitars). The band was joined by the awesome duo, Jai Row Kavi and Rushad Mistry of Indus creed fame, on the drums and bass respectively. Despite the fact that the band was playing its first gig ever , they sounded very professional on stage and performed songs from their debut album Snails Are When I Was Young. The band may not have won any award that night but made all the right noises with their debut gig and with their layered, melodic and almost ambient metal tunes. They are surely a wonderful addition to the already exciting metal scene in the country.

Next up on stage was Providence, clearly the stars of the night. This metalcore band from Bombay, was playing with their new vocalist Karan Pote (ex- Noiseware and Abraxas) after Sunnieth quit the band last month and went on to win five awards that night. Pote seemed to have fit into Sunnieths shoes with consummate ease as the band got the moshpit going with songs from their album Vanguard. The band was joined by Sunnieth on stage for their last song Prosthetics. The teamed growls from Sunnieth and Karan threw the crowd into frenzy – certainly one of the highlights of the night.

The award ceremony kick-started as Keshav Dhars Skyharbor won the award for the Best Emerging Band, while Providence bagged the award for Best Album Art for their album Vanguard. Taz James of Chaotic Years won the award for Best Keybordist while Arun Natrajan and Vibhas Venkatraman of Eccentric Pendulum bagged the awards for Best Bassist and Best Drummer respectively.

After this, Karan Pote was back on stage with his metal band from Pune, Abraxas. The band continued from where Providence left off and with the twin guitar attack of Abhimanyu and Vinay shredding away to glory, ably supported by Naman on drums and Kenneth on bass, the band got the circular pits going at certain points in their set. A lot of people from Pune had specifically driven down to catch Abraxas live and the band didnt disappoint one bit as they played some of their most popular tracks like Deviation, Eyes of Disgrace, I Remember among others to get the crowds really going before winding up their set with another crowd favourite, Sweet Sufferings.

The next category was Best Guitarist which was bagged by Keshav Dhar of Skyharbor. While Sunnieth Revankar of Bhayanak Maut won the award for Best Vocalist for his work with his former band Providence, while defeating himself for his own work with Skyharbor, which was also nominated in the same category.

The next set of awards was for the Popular Choice category. Skyharbors Maeva won the award for Best Song, and Providence bagged the next two awards for both Best Band and Best Album for their album Vanguard.

Bangalore-based metal band Eccentric Pendulum who had a very successful night themselves, took to the stage next. The band, fresh from winning awards for Best Drummer and Best Bassist earlier that night, put together a very tight set playing songs from their album Winding the Optics, while also playing some of their new songs like, Resisting the Equation.

The next set of awards was for the Jury awards category. Maeva by Skyharbor won the award for Best Metal Song, while Eccentric Pendulum picked up the award for Best Metal Album of the Year for Winding the Optics.

The last award for the night was the coveted Critics Choice Award for Best Metal Band, which was bagged by Goddess Gagged from Bombay. The closing act for the night was the mighty Zygnema, who will be representing India at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany later this year. The energy that the bands frontman Jimmy brings into every performance is phenomenal and Sunday night was no different. Add to that the genius of Sidharth Kadadi on guitars, the brilliance of Mayank on drums and Ravi on bass, and you have all the ingredients for an explosive performance! The crowd went berserk as they broke into a huge circular pit in front of the stage, while the band belted out songs from their album Born of Unity, including crowd favourite 59(which has almost become an anthem now) along with some newer tracks like Endangered.

To say the night was phenomenal would be an understatement. Watching the pioneers of metal in India and all their fans under one roof celebrating the growth of the Indian metal scene was testimony to their love for metal and its success India.

Ishan Vartak

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Bangalore Open Air – Part 2

Uday Shanker

Uday Shanker is a freelance photographer based in Bangalore and has a day job.

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Jack Daniels Rock Awards ’12 at Mehboob Studio, Mumbai

Nigel Rajaratnam Nigel Rajaratnam Nigel Rajaratnam

Time check – it was 18 o clock. Was I going to make it on time for the JD rock awards? At around 7-ish as I was zooming on the highway, I was mentally preparing myself for what the entire evening was going to be like. I got to the venue at sharp 7:30 and was mighty pleased to see that the entrance was nicely decked up with sweet signage complete with a desk of folks from Rolling Stones magazine/JD to check invites and sort out the invitees. They had setup a neat-looking JD/Rolling Stones magazine backdrop for photo-ops with a dozen photographers trying to squeeze out glamour shots for their respective publications. It all looked a lot like an elite fashion event.

This was the first time that I had entered this stage at Mehboob Studios and as I later found out this was the first time they were doing a live music event at this particular studio. It was huge with an incredibly high ceiling and the minute I got in, I was immediately enveloped by the smell of expensive alcohol and the sound of general last-minute sound check noises. I got in just in time to hear Luke Kenny start to rev up the crowd to get the Rock Awards going after introducing himself as the host. The turnout for the rock awards was modest at first but the place got crowded later, not uncomfortably so at any point. Furthermore, the place had long bars on both sides serving unlimited JD on the house!

Sky Rabbit or the erstwhile Medusa played a tight set of their tracks in spite of the odd sounding PA mix which I would largely attribute to the high ceiling and room in general. The Sky Rabbit sound, if I were to describe it from the few songs I heard them do in that particular setting, was a mix of post-punk and electronica, which for some might be pretty reminiscent of early Coldplay. However, it was packed with enough new ideas to still be quite distinct sounding.

Indus Creed was up next and they played a long set. I liked quite a few of their songs, but I certainly would want to hear the album that’s coming out soon so I can listen to them without having to put up with spectacular room reverb. They were quite energetic on stage, were groovy and had interesting bass lines and harmonic modulation throughout, which I quite love in a band.

Next up was Ankur and the Ghalat family. Since the first time I heard these guys at Blue Frog when we were all doing a mixed singer-songwriter set, I’ve always liked their downright earthy sound and honest songwriting. Moreover, their sound has always retained its simplicity and has a nice clarity in the way the songs are arranged and the harmonies are brought out.

For the most part, I expected this to be a lot like the splendid party thrown by the nice people over at The Blue Frog, a few months ago. Except at the end of it, maybe there would be a good old fashioned fist fight over who deserved to win best award for a three legged drummer. This certainly was at par and done on a much a larger scale apart from being an awards event. However in retrospect, I figure that one of the nicer things about the Bombay music scene is that nearly everybody has played with everybody and shares a healthy mix of camaraderie and the Bohemian spirit of I-don’t-really-f**king-care which leaves little or no place for any kind of angst or I-know-where-you-live type of behaviour. Bombay is certainly a great place to be a musician.

Amongst mixed reactions, knowing nods and downright ‘What the Frankenstein’ reactions the winners for this years JD Rock Awards were announced. Bombay Bassment won Best Emerging Act which I suppose was well deserved. They have acquired quite a following in the past year and their live act is very entertaining. Bassist Ruell Baretto was nominated for Best Bass Player at the last JD Awards and the band was ecstatic when they found out they had won this year. It would be great to see where and how this band evolves and where they go with their sound. Dischordian won the award for Album Art of the Year designed by Hemant Kumar for the album The Feni Farm Riot. Pentagram won several awards some of which were for Best Vocalist, Best Guitarist, Best Video and Best Album. Shiraz and Vishal were pretty much on a marathon to collect the plethora of awards that they picked up. Best Vocalist (Female) went to Subhadra Kamath from Fire Exit. Best Drummer went to Vibhas Venkatram from Eccentric Pendulum.Stefan Kaye from The Ska Vengers picked up Best Keyboardist. Best Bassist went to Abhinav Chaudhary from The Circus. Best Producer went to Miti Adhikari for his work on Menwhopause album Easy. Best Venue went to Blue Frog which couldn’t really have gone any other way! A special award for Years of Excellence went to Lou Majaw.

The party continued for quite a while even after the awards were done and host Luke Kenny had signed off. The alcohol kept flowing and people seemed to be having a good time too. The place had a steady influx of a lot of familiar faces from television and movies who didnt really have much to do with the rock awards or rock in particular but certainly contributed to the overall eye candy. I think that purely for the great setup, the copiously flowing alcohol and the abundance of legs, the JD rock awards was certainly a smashing night.

Nigel Rajaratnam

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Summer Storm Festival 2012 headlined by Opeth at Palace Grounds, Bangalore

The fact that the Metal scene is exploding in India is pretty well known. Over the past half a decade, an unprecedented number of international metal bands have played at various music festivals in the country. Back in 2010, a hitherto unknown entity called Overture India got Lamb of God down, much to the Indian metal crowd’s joy. After a year’s hiatus, they announced that Opeth would be headlining the second edition of Summer Storm on 5^th February, 2012 (which isn’t exactly summer, but we wouldn’t hold that against the organizers). Foreign bands Suidakra from Germany and Nothnegal from Maldives, as well as local metal bands Theorized and Eccentric Pendulum from Bangalore, were added to the lineup before the festival.

Palace Grounds in Bangalore has turned into a Mecca of sorts for the Metal fans in India, since most of the big Metal festivals are held there. On the day of the concert, all roads leading to Palace Grounds were thronged by kids in black t-shirts from all over the country, as well as neighbouring countries. The venue had all the usual food and metal merchandise stalls, although booze was nowhere in sight! However, it was heartening to see that adequate supply of water was maintained throughout the concert, since at most gigs fans get desperate to find water near the end of the gig.

The gig started on time around 4 p.m., with thrash band Theorized opening the proceedings. They had released an impressive debut EP, False Hope of Tyranny, a couple of years back although their setlist for the gig consisted of only two songs from it – ‘Dark Incarnation’ and ‘Raise The Dead’, while the rest of the set consisted of new originals. Theorized has improved by leaps and bounds, in terms of tightness on stage, crowd engagement and interaction, in comparison to the only time I saw them live 2-3 years back in Mumbai. The band plays new age thrash with tons of groove, which a section of metal fans appreciate well.

Progressive metallers Eccentric Pendulum were next up on the stage. Now this band is really progressive, unlike the plethora of metalcore bands that use djent to masquerade as progressive metal. Searing thrashy riffs accentuated by cleverly crafted guitar solos and intelligent progression typifies their music. However, their sound during the gig lacked the “fullness” since a guitarist was missing from their lineup. They played mainly from their debut full-length Winding The Optics and managed to get the crowd into a frenzy when they played the impressive ‘Mathematicians of Ambient Waters.’ Both, Theorized and Eccentric Pendulum, had their merchandise for sale at the gig, which included t-shirts and CDs.

The Indian bands finished playing by 6 p.m. after which the first international, and pretty unknown band, Nothnegal came up on stage accompanied by appropriately dark ambient synths. It was very mysterious that despite hailing from the tiny atoll called Maldives, Nothnegal had somehow managed to rope in drummer Kevin Talley (ex-Dying Fetus and ex-Chimaira) and keyboardist Marco Sneck (ex-Kalmah) who were part of bigger and much better bands. But what perplexed me the most was how a band with members from good bands managed to be so mediocre. To be honest, the first part of their set was above average, although the guitar soloing ability of the frontman is questionable. This was the part of the set where they had harsh vocals, metalcore-ish chug-chugging riffs ably supported by the impeccable keys of Mr. Sneck and tight drums of Mr. Talley. It was during the last two or three songs that the band threw a huge curveball by introducing a different singer with clean vocals. That was when they dipped below the waves of mediocrity and I headed to grab some of the Kaati rolls.

The Celtic metallers from Germany, SuidAkrA, took to the stage next. They are Celtic not by the sole virtue of having a bagpiper in their midst, but they do incorporate Celtic tunes and themes in their songs, and their evidently Celtic costume. They started off with the incredibly catchy ‘Pendragon’s Fall’, which was probably the first time many people, who had missed Eluveitie, heard a Celtic metal tune. They went on to play songs culled from almost all their albums, like ‘Wartunes’, ‘Dowth2059′ and ‘The IXth Legion’. However, they had to cut short ‘Stone of the Seven Suns’ because the mandolin was out of tune. SuidAkrA’s set was characterized by the highly infectious, energetic and upbeat Celtic tunes, which got the crowd suitably primed for Opeth. However, their set was marred by a mishap when a barricade collapsed on a poor guy’s foot who had to be carried off from the spot and SuidAkrA even stopped between two songs to enquire about him.

Opeth took a while to come onstage, which they did around 8 p.m. to a backdrop of the album art from their latest album ‘Heritage’ and ambient strains of ‘Through Pain to Heaven’ (a Popul Vuh track). They straightaway launched into playing two songs from Heritage, ‘The Devil’s Orchard’ and ‘I Feel The Dark’, back-to-back. The incredible proggy-ness of The Devil’s Orchard was too much to even properly nod your head to! The diminutive Martin Mendez has to be one of the best bassists in Metal at the moment. The groovy low notes he plucks from his bass are nothing short of exquisite!

Mikael introduced the next song as one from Martin Mendez’s first album with the band, before he started with the hypnotizing fingerpicking intro to ‘Face of Melinda’ from Still Life. Next, they played ‘Slither’ from Heritage again, as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio. With trademark self-deprecation Mikael introduced the next song as the only album he played bass in and not too well at that. The soothing cadence of ‘Credence’ from My Arms, Your Hearse and the one that followed it, ‘To Rid The Disease’ from Damnation, was made more mesmerizing by the haunting atmosphere and keywork provided by the “new kid on the block” Joakim Svalkerg.

As is the case with almost all Opeth concerts, Mikael, the standup comedian that he is, reserved his most biting ribbing for Mendez, calling him “chickenshit” for sporting a moustache like us Indians but hiding it in his beard. At this point, Joakim was facing some problem with his keyboard and Mikael fumbled with the order of the setlist too, provoking him to ask the audience to shout “F**k you, Mikael”, something he had been asking the audience to do all evening! After playing ‘Folklore’, from Heritage, he obliged the expectant crowd by revealing they were moving on to the heavier part of the set.

They chose ‘Heir Apparent’ from Watershed to start the Death Metal proceedings. I felt truly blessed when they next played one of my most favorite Opeth tracks ‘The Baying of the Hounds’ from Ghost Reveries, a song they don’t play live very frequently. The endearing part of this song is that it has all the Opeth ingredients in equal parts – the brutal part suddenly switching to mellower portions accompanied by heavenly ambience! Every great band has a crowd-sing-along track, and for Opeth, it is ‘The Drapery Falls’ from Blackwater Park, which they played much to the crowd’s frenzied joy. Coming back for encore, Mikael played the starting lick of ‘Deliverance’ joking all the while that Slash had stolen it from him! It was a fitting finale with its long drawn out, frantic headbang-inducing outro.

Many were apprehensive before the gig, about Mikael Akerfeldt’s ability to growl anymore and whether the set would be dominated by songs from Heritage, which had got mixed reactions from the Opeth faithful. All those fears were put to rest over the course of the evening, as Opeth probably played one of the best sets ever, with songs from all the albums, except the first two.

Overall, Summerstorm 2012 lived up to almost everyone’s expectations. The sound was decent for most parts, although it could have been better during SuidAkrA’s spell. The organizers were diligent enough to ensure that everything progressed smoothly. My only grouse is that there could have been a good mix of Indian bands from across the country much like the first edition of the Summer Storm Festival, and Nothnegal could have been avoided altogether!

Summer is miles and miles away, but Summer Storm is here to stay.

Karthik Yermunja

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SummerStorm Festival 2012

Vikas Nambiar

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Cypher16, Eccentric Pendulum, Velvet Trap, Verses at The Kyra Theatre, Bangalore

Uday Shanker

Uday Shanker is a freelance photographer based in Bangalore and has a day job.

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Interview with Fractalline

Fractalline is a 4-piece death metal band from LA with KP Krishnamoorthy on guitars, Jordan Nalley on vocals, Ray Rojo on drums and Sandesh Nagaraj on bass. WTS caught up with the band members after their recent show in Bangalore, where they spoke about their ‘Indianfestation’ tour , the Indian metal scene and their story so far…

WTS: How has your Indianfestation tour been so far?

KP: This tour was originally supposed to span six cities but there were a few changes in the plan. Nobody is going to turn up for anything when there’s a cricket match happening. So we are playing at four cities now. We’ve had a very good response from the cities where we’ve played so far – that’s Mumbai, Manipal and Bangalore and we will be playing in Delhi tomorrow, and we’ll fly back to LA the day after.

WTS: Tell us more about the shows you’ve done as part of this tour so far.

Jordan: Tonight was pretty amazing, but considering it (Bangalore) was their home town, I kinda expected it to be this way. But for Manipal, it was kinda last second, didn’t know what’s gonna happen, never heard of the place. We went out there, just knowing that we will be playing for a college crowd and that’s about it. I think nearly 300 people were there.

KP: Yeah. they sold more than 300 tickets before the show and had walk-ins as well.

Jordan: But there was no sound guy, I had to do sound for seven bands last night! (laughs) So I went early and did the sound for all the bands, on a piece-of-crap system. It was an old analog and everyone cranked all the way up and still everything was fed back and nothing was loud enough. It was a fun night though!

WTS: From Myndsnare to Fractalline, how has the sound evolved?

KP: There is some change that can be attributed to me wanting to try and get a heavier sound. I’m using an 8-string guitar now as compared to standard 6-string that I used earlier. That has definitely changed the tone. This has allowed Sandy to do a whole bunch of different stuff on the bass guitar.

WTS: How did you guys get to know each other at MI (Musicians Institute)?

Ray: KP was looking to form a heavier band and was looking for members. Sandy wanted to keep playing with him. Yasmin, the drummer of Myndsnare, heard me play some stuff and gave my number to KP and we got together, practiced and it went well. We had a vocalist before Jordan and that thing didn’t work out, Jordan heard us play in school and liked it. So, he came down to our practice and from there it’s been pretty good.

WTS: So the formation of the band can pretty much be attributed to MI?

KP: I wouldn’t probably give it that much credit, but yeah, if it was not for that then we wouldn’t have the band.

Jordan: It’s a great place to meet people. The biggest plus about MI is, you take the time to meet the people within this school and you’ll find people with similar interests and people with similar goals. We pretty much found each other that way. Actually we don’t have similar tastes in music. We write the same music that we enjoy – what’s coming out of it, all of us equally.

WTS: You’ve mentioned some of your influences as Death, Slayer and All Shall Perish. How do guy work it out, with such different tastes in music?

KP: Well, we don’t really look at our influences at all, we just make music based on what we feel like playing and that’s it. We don’t try to sound like a like a certain band or anything of that sort. In Fractalline, the portions of creativity that apply to the band fit in perfectly with the rest of the guys and what they want. So when I come up with the riffs, these guys like it. When he comes up the vocals parts and lyrics, we like it. The drums part, I think, is totally f**king awesome, without the stuff he plays we really wouldn’t sound like the way we do. The same goes to Sandy as well. I think in this band there has no specific instrument or person or musician taking the forefront because all of us contribute equally.

Jordan: Yea, the songs just happen. We don’t like to aim for certain genre or bands.

KP: Yeah, we seem to be actually letting the songs tell us what do they want us to sound like than making the sound come out of us and that seems to be working out for us.

WTS: A few weeks back you released your EP Infinite Entropy. How has the response been back in LA and India?

KP: The response in LA was not as big as in India, because we don’t have a presence over there like we had with Myndsnare. But we have been playing for people who loved the music and have picked up our CDs. We are going to be taking back some T-Shirts as well which we’ll be selling there. A lot of people have been buying our CDs over here. I think there’s not too much of a difference between the audience over there and the audience over here, and the amount of money they are willing to spend on a CD. It’s pretty much the same.

WTS: You guys have been working on a concept album. How has the progress been with that so far and when do you expect to complete it?

KP: Well, Jordan is working on all the concepts for the songs, he has a clear idea of what each song is supposed to be about. We will be writing music and it seems to be like, every three weeks to a month we’ve got enough material for a new song while working on it. We also have a lot of school work and other stuff to do. So it’s not fast as you know getting a band in studio and writing an album but I think this way there is certain organic progress to the way music is coming out of us, we will have time to shift a little bit between songs before we end up with five or six songs for lineup in a week. We should have a full length before the end of this year.

WTS: Are you planning a comeback with Myndsnare anytime soon?

KP: Myndsnare is pretty much over. Probably no tours either. We frankly think it doesn’t make much sense to play again because we don’t have any new songs after the earlier album release. We play the songs for people who haven’t seen us live, but I doubt if it’s going to get enough ‘going’ in it to get approved or so. Sorry about that! (smiles)

Jordan: We will always figure ways to get back here with Fractalline. It’s been amazing, eye-opening, crazy! I also wanted to say that with the Indianfestation tour, all the bands we’ve played with have been amazing. I mean I haven’t really heard Indian metal before apart from Myndsnare and Extinct Reflections. Hearing about bands like Bhayanak Maut, Eccentric Pendulum and the time that they have already spent in the scene here. With the kind of online promotion and TV promotion that we have in the States, these Indian bands would definitely be doing really well. Even for the level that they are at here, still playing small venues and not having a worldwide name, they definitely equal the bands over there in the States. So that way, the bands that are out here are way better than the bands that play within the States. So playing with bands like that is really an honor and awesome to see. I’m thankful to them, they are all awesome.

WTS: Sandy and KP, you guys have seen bands like Dying Embrace, Myndsnare, Extinct Reflections and Kryptos emerge in the past and also the bands that are emerging now. How do you think the Indian metal scene has changed over the past 15 years?

KP: In the past 15 odd years, the internet has really doubled and social networking has started making a difference in the way bands promote their shows. Also, the internet has caused a bifurcation of people – those who bitch about everything all the time online and those who have been really supportive of music and buying CDs and things like that. I think the internet is the only real difference that happened in the music scene, everything else is a byproduct. Any scene would do good if it had money. Nowadays, you actually come across some guys and venues understanding what a metal band is. Like Kyra isn’t going to ask “When is the orchestra going to come?” you know? You don’t need to deal with rubbish like that anymore. It’s more like a mindset thing and now people are actually starting to understand what a pop or rock band is.

WTS: Has the musicianship changed over the years?

KP: Yeah! Very much. If I was playing how I was playing with Threinody and all now, people will be laughing me off. Now you can’t play a few power chords and a shitty cover of ‘Raining Blood‘.

WTS: How has the crowd changed? Are they more receptive to originals now?

KP: Definitely. Earlier you expected every band to play two or three covers to check out what the band is capable of and then you will listen to original music. Nowadays people don’t give a damn about covers especially in Bombay, Bangalore and Delhi and cities like that.

WTS: Where do you see the Indian metal scene going five years from now?

KP: Into smaller towns, to more cities and people. Kryptos is doing a really cool thing. They are planning a 35-city tour in India!

Jordan: That way it opens up possibilities for other bands to do the same thing and other cities to start expecting stuff like that.

KP: This is exactly how tours are done in US and it works .That’s the only way you can earn money in the US as a touring band. Over here, we are spending so much money flying between cities and doing all that kinda stuff that you can’t really afford to make living out of something like that. But if there are enough small crowds of about 100 to 300 in the cities for a band and you rent a bus and do that kinda stuff, its gonna be way easier. Renting a bus and a driver is not that expensive. So if you put that aside and see the profits you can make from merch sales and how much the venues will pay you for the shows , it’s actually going to be something feasible. If Kryptos and the other bands follow suit, it will open up our reach to smaller towns; they’ll really understand what this is about and start getting into it.

WTS: Do you think we’ll ever be as big as the metal scene in Europe in terms of number of releases?

Jordan: The kids out here who have come to our clinics, (which were a part of our tours, hosted at Furtados), have been so passionate. With them writing lyrics and music, and knowing how the people they look up to play and write music… as long as they keep coming out of India, we definitely have high hopes in the Indian metal scene. The shows here have been amazing! LA is so talked up and over exaggerated, the only bands for which you see better crowds than what we have, are Slayer or other international bands. Other than that you have just a bunch of people sitting around and staring at you. The crowd here really loves their music.

KP: I think there are two sides to it. Over here, (Bangalore) a lot of people come to see us because of Myndsnare. In Delhi they don’t know us. So the kind of crowds we play to are not the same. While one side is factually and perfectly true, you can’t really hope to claim crowds like this unless we put in the hard work and pay up dues to build up a following.

Abhilash Achar

Abhilash Achar may be remembered as the (in)famous guy behind hits such as 'Extraterrestrial Human Being' and 'The guy who spent way too much time on the internet' or from his earlier works such as 'Serving justice in the mosh-pit'. He is currently working on his next big hit, 'Lounge Bedroom Music for a Metalhead' (You are welcome.) Find his musical misadventures at last.fm/user/humanethb

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Middle East in Bangalore!

Sunday 6th of Feb, 2010: Kyra Theatre, Indiranagar was the venue for last leg of Orphaned Lands India tour. Prior to coming to Bangalore, they had already performed at VIT, Vellore & Elysium, Pune. After an amazing gig in front of a 7000 strong crowd at Vellore, but a disappointing turnout for the Pune gig, a vibrant response was expected from the Bangalore metalheads, considering the fact that the line-up included three local bands & a Swedish metal act.

The gig was supposed to start at three in the afternoon, but as has been the case with all the concerts here in Kyra, it got delayed by a couple of hours. We reached the venue at 2:30 and all we could see were the members of Eccentric Pendulum & Inner Sanctum sipping their beer & smoking their cigarettes outside the venue. The sound check had just started & we realized we had ample time for a couple of beers before things got underway.

Around 5:30 p.m, Eccentric Pendulum took the stage. The first track was followed up with ‘Mathematicians of Ambient Waters’ and ‘My Eucalyptine Depth‘, executed flawlessly. Finishing up with ‘Anonymous Existence’, theirs was a pretty short set with just four tracks, even though the crowd cheered for them and asked them to play on. Tight as usual & very professional in terms of performance, a trait that that they have displayed in all of their gigs we have attended in the past few months. Their brand of progressive metal with deep growling vocals is certainly something that sets them apart from the rest of the acts. Certainly one Bangalore band we dont mind seeing time & again. It would have been great if some of their merchandise was on sale at the venue, though.

Next up were Bevar Sea, a half a year old stoner/doom metal outfit. We had never seen them live before, or any desi stoner act as a matter of fact and were curious to see how they would sound live. Before the band hit the stage, the artwork came up on the projector, and boy, was that good or what? Shrooms, gargoyles and what not! They did a short sound check and quickly went on to perform the rest of their set. The heavily distorted guitar sound was certainly reminiscent of stoner bands like Sleep, Kyuss, & even Black Sabbath, which Bevar Sea mention as their influences. But the doom laden sound was missing & snail-pace tempos were replaced with upbeat rhythms & energetic on-stage antics. The vocalist had a great stage presence, pumping fists in the air and offering free beer to those who headbanged the most ( quite ironic that this included a metalhead who was under 18). It was only later that I found out this was their debut gig! Surely an act to watch out for in the future!

Just when we were trying to make a quick dash to the bar to grab some more beer, Inner Sanctum came on stage and did what they are best known for – provoking fans to get down to some serious headbanging, and that resulted in the first moshpit of the day. These guys are a very tightly knit unit, top that with catchy riffs, crazy fast solos & a vocalist who growls like no other which makes them really special to fans who sleep with their mosh boots on. Their relentless energy on the stage, with tracks blasted out at breakneck speed made sure there wasn’t a single moment during the set when the fans had any respite. Quarantine evoked the best response from the crowd, and a crazy circle pit! However, Inner Sanctum do have that LoG influence that they vehemently deny, and though this appeals to the majority of the fans, it can be slightly repetitive for the regulars who attend almost every metal gig in town.

After the desi acts were done, there was a long break, adequately supplemented by beer and we noticed that the size of the crowd had grown as well. Its always good for both the bands and the fans to see people turn up for metal gigs in good numbers. Special mention of the fact that there were more female metalheads in the crowd this time around thansay, the Undergrind fest!*horns up*

Degradead took the stage next. Labeled as a melodeath/thrash hybrid, expectations were pretty high from this Swedish band, and to be honest, they were probably the most disappointing of the lot. Though the guys seemed pumped up, their live act left a lot to be desired. The sound was overtly commercial (even metalcore-ish, may be?), with clean vocals further playing the party pooper, so to speak. The whiny vocals interspersed with some well executed solos did absolutely no good, and it sounded lackluster with the double bass missing in the action. Despite that, the unabashed anger seemed to connect with the audience & the metalheads responded very well to them. Well, whatever floats ones boat, whatever jiggles your jollies!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the headlining band Orphaned Land climbed onto the stage. These flag-bearers of middle eastern metal (Oriental metal, anyone?) have already earned quite a reputation for themselves, probably being the only Israeli band known very well all across the globe. What should be noted is, they are a terrific live act. From the regular set of metal artists that have played in India in the last couple of years, Orphaned Land are probably the most refreshingly different of them all. Their eclectic & seamless fusion of progressive/doom metal with traditional Arabic folk music was absolutely mesmerizing. Even though the (female) vocals and other traditional instruments they use in their music were pre-recorded, the groovy atmosphere they created was amazing. Playing crowd favorites from Mabool, ‘The Birth Of The Three‘ & ‘The Kiss Of The Babylon‘ had the whole audience clapping and singing along with the music. A chant for ‘Sapari‘ from the ORwarriOR album rose slowly and the band obliged. Coincidentally, it was the drummers birthday, which was celebrated on stage, with the whole crowd singing to wish him, surely a sight! A few of the tracks featured the official videos projected onto the stage as well, which were in sync with the live performance of the songs, certainly a first for an Indoor gig. A girl from the Orphaned Land crew did a folksy tribal belly dance of sorts for a couple of tracks, which everyone in the crowd loved and applauded for. Only sad part of their set was that instead of the scheduled two hours, they ended up performing for almost half an hour less due to initial delays during sound check.

OL & Degradead merchandise was on sale at the venue along with the albums as well, we saw members of the audience checking them out every now and then. All in all, a pretty good gig, would have been better had theyd stuck to the schedule and had every band had the opportunity to play a full set. Orphaned Land clearly demonstrated that they are certainly a band to look out for, and not just for the studio releases! Come back soon guys, and believe us when we say Well be waiting!

Varun Sharma

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Octoberfest – Day One

I am annoyed with the organizers of Octoberfest 2010. Here is this glorious opportunity to call a musical event ‘Rocktober’ and they passed it up. This sort of chance comes only once a year! The Great Indian Octoberfest is an annual 3 day event that happens in Bangalore with loads of music, beer and entertainment. I am quite quite kicked about this years edition as the bandlist is very impressive.

I walk in on Saturday to find the meanest, most bad-ass 3 man moshpit Ive ever seen. Theorized are the first band on stage and the crowd hasnt come in yet. Vocalist Madhav vanishes from the stage to join the mosh which brings the total crowd there to a numerologically sound 4. I head to grab a beer as Theorized finish their consistent set. The cunning plan is to get suitably drunk before Shaan performs later on.

I manage to rush back before Slain have started their set (without spilling the beer, mind you), They include songs from their new album Here and Beyond in their set. ‘Tis a pity these guys werent around in the 80s. They would have sold out stadiums (a band like Boston did!) easily. These young chaps are very talented. Technical metal act Eccentric Pendulum are up next and introduce their new guitarist whos 19 years old. FML. The debut songs from their upcoming album. All the song titles are significantly longer than their earlier works and vocalist Nikhil stumbles while introducing the songs. GRE/GMAT prep eh boys? But their set is tight and ends with a trippy song from said album. They are also the third band in a row to crack a Shaan joke.

I bunk Verses performance to head to the outdoor stage. Ive made fun of em before anyway. Outside, therere mechanical bulls to ride and beer pong to be played. No one is really paying attention to the horrendous ‘Pinball Wizard’ cover by Freedoms Price. I conveniently tune out till Swarathma are on stage. I have high expectations for this performance so I make my way right up to the front row. As they start their set, I am a tad disappointed by Vasu Dixits vocals, which arent as strong as they usually are. The bassist Jishnu is on fire with his infectious and catchy basslines. The real star of the show is artist Vilas Nayak who paints a lifesize portrait of Vasu during the interval of a single song. The audience seem to love their earwormy songs and are very appreciative. Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale are the act scheduled to perform next but they take 30 minutes to setup. I conveniently help myself to a lot of beer in the meanwhile. Drinking on the job! The rest of the concert is a blur although the objective to get drunk before Shaan performs is achieved comfortably.

(Advice to lazy writers: saying you were drunk is a nice way to keep that word-count down)

Sohan Maheshwar

Jack of all tirades, total shirk-off. Follow Sohan on twitter! @soganmageshwar

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