Making Kozhikode rock again

The kind of music to which the city used to swing to with gay abandon in the 1980s and 90s.

Members of the Daira band from Mumbai

The Malabar Christian College Ground in Kozhikode will come alive on Sunday night with refreshing beats of music. The kind of music the city has not heard for quite some time; the kind of music to which the city used to swing to with gay abandon in the 1980s and 90s.

That was the time when Western music thrived in Kozhikode. Several bands, such as Haley's Disciples, Axe Wagon, Dreadlocks, Canbras, Crysalis, and Third Eye, used to perform regularly, and that too not just in Kozhikode.

Those sounds of rock heavy or country music have now become memories from a distant past. Kozhikode continues to love music the way no other place in Kerala does, but it is mostly film music and ghazals.

The city could listen to a different kind of music on Sunday, at the show called Showcase XVI, organised by the Chennai-based Wedoconcers.com. Eight bands from across the country will perform at the five-hour show.

Mumbai-based Hindi rock band Daira will be the main attraction, but there is much more. There are two bands from Bengaluru, Disco Puppet and Aerate Sound, besides the ones from Kozhikode and Kochi.

For the lovers of pure, vintage rock, there is The Old Monks, which is a new band featuring some old musicians from Kozhikode's glorious past, such as Dennis Thecken, Sasi Krishnan, Madan Mohan, K. Bhupesh, Srikanth Gopinath and Reebu. Their performance surely would make many people walk down memory lane.

Three much younger bands from Kozhikode are also there -- Kumila, Pagli and The Harbinger, besides Prayaan from Kochi.

"Our aim is to promote new talents in alternative music with shows like this," says Jashi Shamin of Wedoconcers.com. "We intend to do more such programmes in the future."