Tuesday, 3 December 2013

The South Asian Bands Festival 2013 review (New Delhi)



SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), a  geopolitical union of eight member nations from  South Asia region include – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan & Sri Lanka. The association aims to promote welfare economics & accelerate socio-cultural development in the region. Please read here for more info on SAARC.

The South Asian Bands Festival 2013 ad poster.
Event : The 7th South Asian Bands Festival 2013
Date: November 29th to December 01st 2013.
Time: 6.00 pm onwards
Venue: Purana Qilla, New Delhi (Near Delhi Zoo)

The South Asian Bands Festival 2013 is part of SAARC’s regional integration to help achieve SAARC’s objectives. The South Asian Bands Festival is held in Delhi, at Purana Qilla, every year on the onset of winters. This time it was the association’s seventh edition of the fest. The 7th South Asian Bands Festival 2013, this time, comprised fourteen popular rock bands from across nine nations that rocked the crowd in a 3 day long festival. Listed below are the bands that participated and performed day wise at the event.

 Day 1, November 29, 2013

* Barefaced Liar (New Delhi)
* LRB (Bangladesh)
* ZnG (Bhutan)
* Circus (New Delhi)
* Biuret (Korea)

Day 1 started with balloons aplenty, and before they could disappear into the vast blackness up above, Barefaced Liar from Delhi jumped right in grabbing every dazed soul's attention.  After playing some of their better known tracks, like the now famous To The Line, they called violinist Darshan Singh Sur to belt out some unconventional numbers.  The Liar was followed by popular Bangladeshi band LRB, followed by Bhutanese band ZnG, then Circus an alternate rock band from Dehi and the last band for the night was ‘Biuret’ a Korean rock band which was a complete surprise package and entertainer par excellence.

 Day 2, November 30, 2013

* Stigmata (Sri Lanka)
* Eman’s Conspiracy (Maldives)
* Papon And The East Indian Company (Mumbai)
* Strings (Pakistan)

Day 2 had four popular rock bands lined up, first up was ‘Stigmata’ from Sri Lanka styled in appearance and sound of progressive thrash & Death Metal with Hard Rock influences. ‘Eman’s Conspiracy’ from Maldives too sounded similar like ‘Stigmata’, both the bands had style and music and they sounded good and tight. An anchor was present on stage and he kept interacting with the crowd to let them know who’s up next and to check their pulse of likes and dislikes, on one interaction with the crowd, the anchor confirmed that ‘Stings’ from Pakistan were lined up for the night to which a crowd of over 5,000 cheered and hooted as a sign of warm welcome and love. The anchor further teased the rocking crowd before they witnessed ‘Strings’, “next up is Papon And The East Indian Company” the crowd at the name of ‘Papon’ went wild, “how many Papon fans in the house tonight?” asked the anchor, a quick loud hoot came in response with every single hand fluttering high in the air to acknowledge the inquiry.

Papon consistently rocked the stage with Assamese numbers like ‘Pak pak’, ‘Tokari’ etc and bollywood numbers like ‘Kyon’, ‘Banao Banao’ etc. Papon & his band received an incredible crowd response. ‘Strings’ too did not lose out any opportunity to uplift the moods of the already enthralled crowd. ‘Strings’ with their pop rock numbers perfectly ended the second day of the event.

Day 3, December 1, 2013

* What’s In The Name (Mumbai)
* Pardis (Afghanistan)
* Susmit Sen Chronicles (New Delhi)
* Albatross (Nepal)
* The Raghu Dixit Project (Bengaluru)

Due to some reason, Day 3, I could not witness the event, however, I am entirely sure that Day 3 must had been a kick ass gig. From ‘What’s In The Name’ (winners of many inter-college and national level band competitions) to ‘Susmit Sen Chronicles’(founder member and lead guitarist of Indian Ocean fame) to ‘The Raghu Dixit Project’ (coke studio fame) must have ripped the Delhi crowd apart.

I will be more than happy to put an article if somebody could help me with the review of Day 3 schedule, for the love of music.

On the other hand NH7 weekender must have faced a competition with other Gigs and festivals that took place around Delhi-NCR and were for FREE. Apart from the SAARC fest, there was another FREE entry gig on Sun Dec 01st ’13 near India Gate lawn, event name “Voice of vote concert 2013” with line up bands like - Euphoria, Parikrama, Mrigya and other 17 rock bands. Music aficionados had a better deal attending FREE gigs against NH 7. I was one of them :-). Watch out NH 7!!