BENGALURU: Palace Grounds! How many memories bind us – ‘the Young of Old Bangalore’ – to this grand maidan, with it playing host to many circuses, exhibitions and fairs over the decades! And then there were the concerts, performances, gigs, and acts of the who’s who from the global rock and metal scene – a fond highlight of Bengaluru, which was then ‘Bangalore’.
As a metalhead myself, I can intricately recollect Bangalore’s love for rock and metal music. In 2011, Palace Grounds was electrified, and sanctified, by the vocals, riffs, and beats that followed Master of Puppets, Enter Sandman, and Unforgiven.
Metallica headlined, and the arena was packed. I worked at another major daily then. I had a colleague who shared my love for all things metal, and we decided to wrap up work early and head to the venue. When you attend a metal concert, it’s sort of customary to sport a black tee, preferably with an insignia of the playing band.
Accordingly, with our black tees on, we arrived to headbang and mosh at Palace Grounds. The concert was a gift, watching James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo, and Lars Ulrich play right in front of you, and Bangalore was awestruck. Metallica further scintillated Bangalore’s rock and metal music heart. Metallica was in India as part of the Rock ‘n India music festival, and Bangalore was chosen to feature the legendary American heavy metal band.
The festival had opened in 2008, getting Indians, and specifically Bangaloreans, to headbang to numbers by several iconic bands. Opening with Megadeth and Machine Head, the festival also featured British metal sensation Iron Maiden, all enthralling Bangalore in the years that followed. My initiation into rock and metal happened during a school trip in 2001.
A classmate’s Walkman contained a Linkin Park cassette, and I was hooked. I have heard my brethren of this genre confess the role of Linkin Park early in life for their musical transformation, and I guess it’s true as in my experience too. Over the years, I witnessed the brilliance of Kreator, Opeth, Children of Bodom, and Suidakra, to name a few metal bands, while I also had the joy to behold Roger Waters, Mark Knopfler and Bryan Adams perform in namma Bengaluru.
And it wasn’t just Palace Grounds. Several large venues around town hosted these class acts, while also providing stage to budding, as well as successful Indian bands and artistes, to flourish. Sadly, perhaps this was just a phase in the city’s glorious musical journey. The concert scene, especially of this magnitude, has all but vanished. There have been no big bands coming – blame it on issues economic, logistic, or pandemic.
Recently, Michael Learns To Rock did play to a crowd at a popular bar, and there are many such concerts or solo acts organised at smaller venues, but seldom anything as Metallica in 2011 on Palace Grounds. Such was its reception, etching the city’s name on the global music map.
A tee I bought at that venue has ‘Bangalore - The Metal Capital of India’ inscribed on it. Bengaluru, or Bangalore, still rules the rock and metal scene, which also resonates in its bars, such as Pecos, Jimi’s and Purple Haze, that pay homage to this music. It’s not yet curtains. Let the show begin… again!