During an informal chat on Bangalore’s tempestuous affair with music, a live music organiser braved a comment that ‘Bangalore was never really the rock capital of India’. It may have been received with gasps, but it could just be the bitter truth for the signs of change have begun to brew.
Bands like Wolfmother and Megadeth are giving Bangalore a miss, heading instead to Hyderabad and Delhi, this year. Last year, NH7 took artistes like Mutemath and Meshuggah to Delhi but not Bangalore, which again saw more alternative acts than hardcore metal and rock.
While performances by international bands in the city have hit an all-time low, fingers are pointing towards Bangalore’s latest claim to music fame — EDM or electronic dance music — that is driving rock and metal acts out.
EDM events and artistes have hit Bangalore with regularity. Festivals like NH7, Sound Awake and Sunburn Arena were launched in the city last year. The city also hosted internationally acclaimed artistes like Above & Beyond, David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Fedde le Grand, Paul van Dyk, Dimitri Vegas and Adam Beyer among others.
“Bangalore is definitely at the threshold of being an EDM base in the country. Plus, EDM has become the most accessible music genre and the crowds love it,” says Guru Somayaji, who handles programming and production at Counter Culture, a live music venue in Whitefield.
Arpan Peter, co-owner, Overture that most recently brought Hoobastank here, says, “Bands are not the ones who decide where they will play. It’s the promoters who are not doing enough to get them to Bangalore. That said, one also has to recognise the fact that rock has caught up big time in other cities apart from Bangalore. So it’s no surprise if they play elsewhere.”
Guru asserts that much shouldn’t be read into Wolfmother and Megadeth not coming to Bangalore. “Megadeth was booked for a brand activation while Wolfmother is playing at BITS Pilani’s Hyderabad campus for an annual event,” he says.
Sumeet Suvarna, one of the newer live music organisers in town and owner of Metamorphik Productions, thinks that the decreasing number of international bands coming to Bangalore has a lot to do with how challenging logistics and paperwork are here.
“When we got down Deathember (a Swedish metal band), I wanted them to play in Bangalore, but I didn’t want to have a gig on a weekday and that was the only day they had free. That was the end of that. There is no point debating a shift in choices because the metal/rock scene was never that big in our country,” he says.
For Salman Syed, founder, Bangalore Open Air, money seems to be the issue. “The market has gone haywire not just in India but globally too. I’ve been going left, right and centre to raise money for the next edition of Bangalore Open Air but no one seems to want to risk it. This is probably because rock music doesn’t draw the same kind of crowd that EDM does now. So we’ve decided to crowd-fund the next edition instead of relying on sponsors,” he says.
But will EDM take over Bangalore’s beloved rock scene? Peter is not too worried. “I think EDM is now going through what metal went through between 2010 and 2012. There will be a saturation point and then there will be an EDM burnout,” he says. Fewer bands visiting and the betrayal of organisers may sadden Bangalore’s rock loving community, but Suvarna believes we’re still far ahead compared to other cities.
“There was NH7 Weekender not too long ago. A week back, Bangalore hosted Inferno, a metal music festival. It is a lean phase compared to what we had in 2012 when we had bands visiting Bangalore almost every month. But if you look at other cities, say Hyderabad, there was Hacride in May-June last year, Xanadoo from Singapore in July, Deathember in February and now Wolfmother. So it’s just four bands from overseas in almost a year. Even Bangalore’s ‘lean’ phase has it better,” he says.