Rock in Delhi

By all accounts, Delhi has the hottest campus rock circuit in the whole country. I have been witness to some Fantastic performances over the last 4 years since I attended my first rock show, which was ‘Avanlanche’ in my first year (and which, by the way, counts as one of the best ever). The luster seems how seems to have vanished from the thumping, rockin’ rollin’ stadia over the last year.

Going to a rock these days means more of Punk music than ever before. Gone are all the heavyweights of heavy and extreme metal (Sledge, Myndsnare, Evergreen, Demonic Resurection…) to whom you could head bang till your head broke off, there never was never much of classic rock in the city (Delhi swears by metal-Metallica, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Megadeth…, every Tom, **** and Harry knows and loves them!) and now those messiahs of nu-metal-Joint Family are gone too.

And with these bands has gone the spark from the rock scene. Going to a rock show these days means listening to the same bands with amateur voices trying desperately to sound like big tough men and trying to make music that sounds all the same. There are a few exceptions (Superfuzz is a FUCKIN’ good band with brilliant vocals. If the 3 of the band died today, they’d still be remembered for the vocalist’s primal screams in ‘She ate my heart out’ and ‘I’m back in school again’).

And why is it that any band, claiming to be of any genre, when makes an OC, then that song is always, ALWAYS punk?? For god’s sake can somebody make a straight heavy metal song!!!

All said and done, all this applies mostly to the ‘free’ rock shows (hehe…See I’m an Indian-soooo cheap!). In pubs and clubs where it costs RS.250 to enter and which I have never done till date, the master still reign. The pioneers and flag bearers of Indian rock-like Parikrama, Hundred Octane, Vishnu et all still rock the city with their grrreat music.

In light of all this I am eternally indebted to Yamaha for sponsoring the rock show at Pragati Maidan last Saturday which brought together Superfuzz, Them Clones, Half Step Down, Zero and PDV for a wild night of groove music. If Delhi applied, it would probably win the guiness for the single largest Mosh pit in the world (All thanks to Pin Drop Violence and their growling vocals-The performance wasn’t very good, but when Delhi realizes that extreme metal is on, no matter what the quality-it goes insane.)

So I sit and wait, wait for my first salary, when I would be able to go to see one of these guys perform. Maybe I’ll head bang my brains out.