The road to good music is never too long

Many fans are willing to travel long distances to catch their favourite bands

The Bacardi NH7 weekender music fest is one of the many frequented by aficionados from across the country —Photo: Special Arrangement

There are some who take their music very seriously. They travel to places, far away from home, to watch their favourite band perform. They even have their holidays planned around a concert.

Take for instance, Anirudh J.R. a surgeon at Lifeline Hospital, who has been planning to take a break for a long time. When he heard that his favourite band was performing in China, he immediately booked his tickets.

“Linkin Park was to perform at Shanghai on July 22. We have some relatives staying there; so, we used this opportunity to attend the concert and visit them too. My sister and I have been huge fans of Linkin Park since we were kids and ensured that we got good seats,” he says. He stayed on for a week at Shanghai for a holiday.

Folks save up for months to attend a gig and every penny is worth it all. A few years ago, Nicky-JatinSharma, Founder – Unseen Underground, attended the Graspop Metal Meeting, one the biggest annual hard rock and heavy metal festivals featuring more than 100 bands from all over the world.

“I promised myself that I’d go back. This year’s line up for the same festival was so good that I decided to plan another trip to Europe to attend it and also explore other European countries,” says Nicky, who got to watch performances by Scorpions, Judas Priest, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Faith No More, Lacuna Coil etc.

Music fests organised in India too have many takers, Bacardi NH7 weekender is one of them. The line-up for this year is out. It starts from October 23 at Shillong and travels to Kolkata, Delhi and Pune over the following weekends and ends at Bengaluru on December 5-6.

Music lovers have many reasons to be happy as artistes such as A.R. Rahman, Mark Ronson, Kailasa, The Raghu Dixit Project, Dualist Enquiry and many more will be performing live.

City folks, regulars at the fest, have their schedule sorted. Manish Kishore, CEO of Digitally Inspired, was at Pune last year and has set his dates aside this year too. “I have planned some work in Mumbai that week and will head towards Pune during the weekend,” he says, adding, “It’s not just about the music but also the atmosphere and the kind of people you get to meet there.”