KOCHI: It was a day when the Kochi rock music scene united to give a tribute for the late Girish J Menon, who was fondly called Kraken. His friends organised a ‘Kraken Fest’, incorporating six bands from Kochi and Bangalore. They performed at Q8 Pac, Gold Souk, on Saturday.
Girish, who inspired many lives with his music, died in a road accident on May 13. Even though the loss still remains unacceptable to many of his friends, they decided to organise a tribute to remember the wonderful years they had spent with him.
His friends say he was a good musician, writer and one of the pioneers of the metal scene in Kochi and an inspiration to many.
Girish worked as vocalist in many bands, including ‘In Dying Days’, ‘Two Decades and After’ and ‘Darkest Red’. The bands which performed included Azazeel from Thrissur, Beastial Murder, Two Decades and After and Redemption from Kochi, The Down Troddence and Final Surrender from Bangalore. The event was funded by the band members and friends of Girish.
Azazeel, which is progressive in their genre, is a band where music meets Malayalam poems and folk songs. They played six original songs and also rocked the show by singing Hallowed by Thy name by the legendary international band Iron Maiden.
While ‘Two Decades and After’ played three of their songs, they had to cut short their set list due to technical difficulties.
Final Surrender, a progressive metalcore band from Bangalore, came up with 15 songs in their set list. They also had to cut down because of a technical snag.
The Down Troddence, which has a unique blend of conventional thrash and groove metal, took the audience in its hands, with their first song itself. Over two hundred people showed up for the gig.