The year 2016 would be remembered as a very good year for music, as far as the regional music bands are concerned. From beach jams and band competitions to local bands getting a chance to perform with international artistes and get worldwide recognition, there were plenty of bright spots of cheer about. Indie music, pop, rock and even metal - rock’s subgenre - but still quite different from the no-frills umbrella term, every band had its much-deserved moments in the sun. Metroplus takes a look at some of the musical highlights of the year gone by and Vizag bands' plans for 2017.
Music in cafes
Last year saw the focus shift to cafes becoming a hub for budding musical talents. Cafes and restaurants like Moksha Resto Cafe and Plot No. 17 invited local bands to conduct jams in the evenings. While this concept gradually picked up, it gave a much needed fillip to rock bands that tried doing their best to innovate their repertoire. From cafes, the music shifted to the streets with Sunday beach jams held at the Beach Road. For a city deprived of a good alternate music culture for long, this was a refreshing change. Riding on the wave of this musical high, the city hotels roped in a few bands too. One of the earliest city bands to have made a mark for itself last year was Kairoz. The four-member band that now plays twice a week (Saturdays and Sundays) at Hotel Novotel feels that 2016 set the tempo for a thriving musical scene this year. “Last year saw the revival of band competitions and some big names in the music field come to the city to perform. We had Parikrama, percussionist Sivamani and flautist Naveen Kumar perform at various venues. It was a great year for the live music scene, especially at a time when bands were struggling to keep their passion alive amidst the deafening sound of EDM and DJs,” says Samuel J Benaiah, drummer for Kairoz. The band won the best band award at Rotofest as well as stole the show at the Red Rockstar band competitions. They also performed at the audio launch event of the film Naruda Donoruda in Hyderabad, a film in which the band’s guitarist and drummer got a chance to play.
This year, the band members say, will be equally special. “We are wrapping up our first film project,” they say. Kairoz is composing the music for the Telugu film titled I Phone which is a debut directorial venture of Chetan Maddineni who played the lead in the film Rojulu Marayi . “The film music will have rock, metal and soft romantic musical genres and we are looking to launch the music soon,” says Samuel. Their next performance will be for a commercial launch event on January 22 at the Beach Road followed by their tour to Hyderabad to play at the BITS Hyderabad college festival on January 26. Most of the city bands don’t just play covers. They are each making a mark by composing own track with original songs and albums. Popularity of city-based Heavy Metal bands like Against Evil at the national level has only augmented the music scene of the city.
Going international
Against Evil can easily be termed as our Band of the Year for the many accomplishments this young band has managed to achieve in a short span of time. Last year, this city-based music band was chosen to perform in Delhi alongside world-renowned metal guitarist Jeff Loomis, on his maiden tour of India. This apart, the band started a crowdfunding campaign in August last year on ‘Indiegogo’ for making its first music video and successfully raised over Rs 1 lakh from friends and family all over the world to release its first music video of the band's new song ‘Stand up and fight!’. “Our new song ‘Stand Up and Fight’ was played on European Radio stations such as KLFM and Radio Diabolus alongside songs from other popular international bands like Megadeth, Testament, Overkill and Vader,” say the band members. For the band, it was a dream come true. After a series of success including a slew of awards for the ‘Beat Metal Band’ and the ‘Best Emerging Artists’ at the national level following the release of their debut album Fatal Assault , the band members of Against Evil are all prepped up to record their second album which is expected to release by the end of 2017. Hoping to keep the musical momentum in top gear, the band members say, “We are also planning to do a few more music videos this year and are looking forward to performing in many other cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata where we haven’t got a chance to play yet.”
Beach Jams
Budding bands like Revelations took their chance to shine in the music scene by performing jams at the Beach Road on a regular basis. “Last year we experimented with fusion songs and it connected well with the public,” says the band’s lead guitarist Sree Vatsava. One of their fusion performances of the classic song ‘Varai’ from Chandramukhi with a heavy metal twist was a big hit. This year, the band plans to release an album of covers and original compositions soon. “We are done with the recording of our first original and are now busy shooting the video of the song,” say the band members. The video will be released in their You Tube channel in a month’s time. Other bands like Intrusion Alert released their new single last year called ‘Stranger’ which won at a competition at IIT Kharagpur.
All of this is living proof that, at the end of a long day and an even longer year, what matters is to just do what comes naturally. So while the city bands rejoice, the rest of us should, too, as music takes centre-stage.
