For the last five years, over eight previous editions, gig series Control Alt Delete has been the Mumbai alternative music scene’s pride, hosting a huge line-up of artists at venues across the city.
Last year, the organisers realised Control Alt Delete’s popularity was far-reaching – with contributions coming in from other major towns as well. That’s why they moved it out of Mumbai to Pune in April last year, specifically hosting electronic music artists.
After hosting their second all-metal edition in Mumbai in 2015, they return to their indie rock line-up, bringing the do-it-yourself ethic to Bengaluru club The Humming Tree on January 16. Among the nine bands performing, Bengaluru gets treated to eight bands coming in from outside the city, including Delhi bands such as Superfuzz and Peter Cat Recording Co., along with Ahmedabad/Pune/Mumbai post-rock band Aswekeepsearching and Mumbai fusion artist Achint.
Chennai gets represented with rock ’n’ roll band Skrat and punk band The Broadway Addicts.
The line-up is completed by Mumbai punk rock band Punk on Toast, Thrissur instrumental rock band Mushroom Lake and Bengaluru’s own indie band RushLed. Superfuzz returns to the Humming Tree after nearly a year, when they had last promoted their first release Inner City Waster. Winners of everything from Campus Rock Idols to Channel [V]’s Launchpad, the Delhi band is completing its full-length album. Now with drummer Shardul Mehta on board, bassist Nikhil Rufus Raj says they will be playing new songs as well as the favourites. Nikhil adds that it’s about time Control Alt Delete moved to the capital next.
He says, “There is a good amount of people in the city who would love to contribute and make this happen here. I’d say the next one should happen in Delhi.”
Punk On Toast, on the other hand, have been waiting to play in Bengaluru ever since they released their debut For Hire in December 2014. Drummer Kalidas Shenoy says, “We are excited to play at Control Alt Delete as it is one property and The Humming Tree is one venue we always wanted to play. Both of them together look like a great platform for us. We think this will work to our advantage because we consider Bengaluru to be the rock capital of India and because of the line-up.”
The Mumbai band are a great example of a punk band which evolved out of their early brashness to something more focussed – they’re still angry about something, but they’re not as reckless in their music and production. Kalidas says, “We started off as a band with some down-tempo and emo material, and played just because we wanted to. Now our sound has become more aggressive and fast.”
He adds that they plan to pack in about 14 songs about everything from the government (‘Modi-fied’) to actor Salman Khan (‘Being Inhuman’) as part of their 45-minute set at Control Alt Delete. Their Bengaluru debut coincides with the release of their new single “Shutdown”, which is also part of the set.
Amongst all the experienced bands, there’s a new face representing Bengaluru, with RushLed, who are playing live together for the first time at the gig. While frontman Rajiv Dey has been playing a few solo acoustic gigs with songs from their debut release In Love and Out of Time, this is the first test. Rajiv says, “We’re an absolutely new band to the live scene. Bands usually take really less to go from formation to live. We took three years. This also feels a little reassuring, though, the fact that we were called to play this gig simply for the music we made.”
That sums up the true aim behind Control Alt Delete’s line-up – to have the heavy-hitters and crowd-pullers alongside the new talent, so that everyone lends an equal ear, while crowdfunding is currently taking place via their website (controlaltdelete.in)
