CHENNAI: Sitting in a sweltering hall, one cannot help but feel a bit cooler the moment the F-16s start playing. Then, Live Banned comes on stage and the room heats up again as the crowd swells. This was how Chennai celebrated the launch of the second Music Festival at the Museum Theatre, Egmore, on Saturday. The fest, organised by Amaranta Entertainment, had bands Lagori, F-16, Live Banned, Agam and Skrat performing for an audience of youngsters and music regulars.
The F-16s were mellow and so was the crowd. Frontman Joshua’s voice complemented the music with numbers like Nuke. Meow Meow, a new song by the band, was angry, tumescent with profanity and slightly misogynistic, but the audience was more into it.
The moment one entered the hall on the second night of the music festival, the first thing they noticed was not Lagori playing, but a mosh pit taking up the seating area in front of the stage, a stark difference to the night before. The set was peppered with moments of humour. At one point Tejas, the lead vocalist, asked the crowd to visit the band’s website, adding: “Last week, the Russians hacked it, but now it’s fine,” eliciting a roar of laughter from the crowd.
Skrat was next and they roared. Although they got crowd bobbing their heads to their beat, one couldn’t help but notice that the audience didn’t participate as much until TT Sriram, the frontman, pulled a rather authentic thalam against a rock backdrop!
It was when Agam, the contemporary Carnatic progressive rock band was about to come on stage, that the crowd reacted with excitement.
The Bengaluru-based band played a new song called The Seventh Ocean, which included Carnatic and metal influences fused together to make a head banging symphony.