If you live in Bangalore, like me, then you would know that when a band says it plays “rock” then it's going to be some form of scene core, death core, metal core, or another kind of core that most rock bands come up with! But thank our stars and CCR that there are bands that stand out when they perform and make genuine, awesome music.
One such band is Windoze, a new and upcoming Bangalore-based group comprising Sylvester Pradeep and Hemanth Diwakaran on guitars and vocals, Anand on bass guitar, and Abhilash on the drums. Just four months old, the band creates a powerful mix of blues, blues-rock and rock and roll, all along teasing their audience with an enchanting taste of bluegrass and jazz.
Windoze has performed across the city and I caught their show at the Kyra Theatre & Restaurant recently. The band began their set with crowd favourites (just two of many) — I Shot the Sheriff and Ain't no Sunshine — that were sung by Hemanth and Sylvester.
While Hemanth had the crowd singing along with his take on popular rock and R&B songs like Mustang Sally and Tower of Power's Diggin' on James Brown, the crowd was a bit more ecstatic with Sylvester's performance of Hoochie Coochie Mama , Cocaine and James Brown's I Feel Good . Alternating between Sylvester's ease with belting out those bluesy numbers and Hemanth's more alternative rock sounds, the band was also joined by Aditya Menon on vocals and other friends on stage.
With soaring guitar work, that we would all come to know and love by the end of the night, and the distinctive combination of vocals, the artistes brought more to their performance then just music. The highlight of the evening was their rendition of Suzie Q through which they cleverly weaved in riffs from songs like Smoke on the Water to Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram .
Amidst cheers and cries from the crowd begging for an encore, I couldn't help patting myself for being there to review music that I really enjoyed.
