It has been raining music bands in Malayalam, thanks to the numerous avenues that have been opened up for alternative music. These home-grown bands, which dream of following in the footsteps of Avial or Thaikkudam Bridge, have a repertoire featuring rock, jazz, reggae, semi-classical, fusion, remix, folk….
Cashing in on this trend is Asianet’s new show, ‘Music India’. Produced by Byju Melila, who has been working with the channel for the last 15 years, the show has a dozen bands battling it out for the top spot. Byju has produced shows such as ‘Comedy Show’, ‘Minnum Thaaram’, ‘Five Star Thattukada’, ‘Star Singer’ (Season 2), ‘Comedy Stars’ (two seasons, for which he won three state television awards) and ‘Comedy Express’ for the channel. He talks about juggling comedy and music. Excerpts from an interview:
Conceptualising the show
Do you know the three major aspects that are common to entertainment channels? Serials, music and comedy.
Numerous music-based reality shows in almost all the television channels have reached saturation point. So we wanted to come up with something different for our viewers and ‘Music India’ is a first step towards that. It is a show that is in step with the trend. The judges, the set (designed by Mumbai-based Shyam Bhatia), the audience… we have tried to be as different as we can.
Initial reports
The show has been on air for a few weeks and it is too early to evaluate the response. We are still apprehensive about the reception from those who are hooked on to daily soaps. Nevertheless, it seems to have clicked with the young generation. There is a mix of known and little-known bands in the show. We have given them a level playing field.
The format
The 12 teams, with a total of 120 musicians, were selected after auditions in Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
They have already completed rounds such as ‘Before ‘80s’ round’, ‘Favourites’ and ‘Folk’. In the coming episodes there will be rounds such as ‘Love’, ‘Patriotic song’ and ‘Semi-classical fusion’. Each round is devoted to a certain kind of music or a certain genre. There is no SMS voting and everything depends on the marks given by the judges.
On the judging panel
It is an elite panel with George Peter, Andrea Jeremiah, Deepak Dev and Gopi Sundar as jury members.
They all are very excited and thrilled about the show. For Gopi it is his first outing as a judge on the small screen and for Andrea, who has judged shows in Tamil channels, it is her first show on Malayalam television. Drum wizard Sivamani is a guest on the panel. In addition, we have noted musicians as celebrity judges. George is grooming the bands.
Your hopes about the show
By the time we reach the final stages, we want to see the formation of a professional band, bringing in the best of vocalists, percussionists and instrumentalists.
There are some amazing talents out there, such as the little drummer Adarsh of ‘Thamarassery Churam’ and Ebin Sagar, guitarist of ‘Yagya’.
He has already been picked by Sivamani for the next A.R. Rahman show.
‘Music India’ airs on Asianet, Thursday to Saturday, at 8 p.m.
