The Bangalore band 'Slain' was the star attraction of day one. The lead singer of the band had a pretty amazing voice and about 100 people who turned out for the show were treated to some of their own compositions. Some friend of the band were distributing business cards amongst the crowd while they performed. To my amazement, the card had no contact details, but the URL to their Myspace profile. I was impressed to see that social networking has reached all together new planes these days. I was but disappointed the next day to see that they had just one friend on their shabbily done profile page. Well begun is not always half done..!!
The second day saw Synapse, Lounge Piranha and Karma-6 performing one after the other. Synapse had a pretty tight set and did deliver the goods. Lounge Piranha stuck to their usual set of songs and they seemed to be a little less excited than usual about the gig. I could not watch Karma-6 but was eager to get back for the next day. Friday evening we had L Subramaniam and his son with their awesome carnatic classical performance. Then came the much awaited event of the day - Parikrama. They showed the crowd why they are still the best rock band in the country. The crowd was ecstatic when they belted out songs of Iron Maiden, Korn along with their own compositions. The violinist 'Imran Khan' soon became the crowd's favorite with his swift violin solos, especially 'Open Skies'. The temperature had dropped to 14-15 degree C, but the crowd warmed up to the music pretty quick. Kingfisher, one of the event sponsors had set up beer parlors in the ground which also fueled the enthusiasm.
Saturday started with Toufiq Quereshi and his band, followed by a performance by 'Bandish' - the hindi rock band from Mumbai. But the real attraction of the day was 'Pentagram'. If Parikrama rocked the day before, Pentagram stepped up the tempo yet another notch. This was the liveliest show I've ever been to. The band interacted with the crowd pretty well and soon everyone was jumping up and down to the beats, and the night ended with the powerful rendering of their popular composition 'Voices'. This song has become the theme song for the 'Anti-reservation' movement and the band made it a point to voice their opinion against reservations in this country. Good to see somebody using their mass influence for a good cause. Sunday was 'THE' day, with 'America' playing live at the Palace Grounds. I was all thrilled from the moment I heard that they will be here. They are one of my favorite soft Rock bands of all time. Listen to 'Definitive America' and you will understand what I am talking about. Kadri Gopinath and Ronu Majumdar were having a Flute-Sax jugalbandi at one end of the ground the same time, but I chose to go with 'America'. Trust me they rocked...!!! The crowd turnout was poor but the band belted out many of their hit singles, to the delight of those were around. They also sang couple of songs from their upcoming album - their 21st release in fact...!!
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