2012 has been a phenomenal year for India in terms of music. With loads of International acts, from almost every genre, coming to the country and giving their fans a glimpse of their icons. For rock and metal fans, it has been a year to cherish. Starting off with Progressive masters Opeth, the badasses from Richmond-motherfucking-Virginia : Lamb of God, what seemed to be a pretty shabby first half of the year was soon changed to a well-orchestrated(well, maybe not) chaos among organisers to bring in the big names all at once. Hence the last half of the year saw Thrash pioneers – Kreator, Slayer, Megadeth; the master shredders – Children of Bodom; Revolutionists Korn; Guitar legend Carlos Santana; Rock n Rollers – Guns n Roses; Environmental specialists Gojira; Legends Testament and to end it all up the new sensation in the scene, with their impressive new album this year – Periphery, to name a few. If I’m correct, the last half of the year saw more bands than the number of bands who have visited India in the past 5 years.
And now the question arises –
Is India turning out to be the next Japan?
Do bands prefer India over other countries in Asia, or were they too scared of the Apocalypse theory and wanted to visit every country possible?
No matter how promising the scene is turning out to be, there is one ugly part in the story – crowd turn-outs. As the organisers announced their plans on bringing the bands, one by one, some people like me were confused to choose which one they would like to attend(I was broke as well as confused, but that happens to all college students).
So, why this kolaveri? (That word means Angry Rage in Tamil). Well the answer can be linked to the fact that Bangalore, the main hub of these concerts, got a big blow when Palace Grounds – the venue for these concerts, was declared a no-concert zone by the current government. The first major victim – the inaugural Bangalore Open Air. Supported by Wacken Open Air, this was the best thing that could happen to India. We got our own Wacken!! And to top it all, Kreator was headlining it!! Like all concerts, the proposed venue was Palace Grounds. But due to the regulations, they were forced to shift to a different venue – a cricket ground of a college, which was far from any civilization. Though the organisers made ample efforts to provide everyone free transport from Palace Grounds to the venue, the distance of the venue from the main city made many skip the concert. Sad scene, reports say there were just about 2-3k people in attendance.
The Palace grounds restrictions meant everyone had to search for a new venue, but that was not easy. No convenient venue was available within city limits, so everyone had to venture to the outskirts. As if this was not enough of a head-ache, some geniuses thought –
“How about hosting a concert clashing with another concert?”
And the first example – Megadeth performing on the same day as Children of Bodom.
My first reaction to this was – “Are the organisers smoking garden grass instead of weed?”.
Seriously speaking, why the hell would you bring two popular bands, clashing on the same day and screwing up your own income from the concert? Answer – competition and possible elimination of rivals. Megadeth was performing in Delhi, at the very same grounds where Metallica cancelled their show last year. Mustaine would have been happy to take up the opportunity to say – “I’ll do what they couldn’t”. And they did perform; in-front of a crowd which was 1/8th the normal turn-out you would expect in a Megadeth concert. Children of Bodom were in Bangalore the same day, and luck didn’t favour them that much. Pretty dry weather in the first two days of the event, but on CoB’s day, it was raining like hell. As if the rain gods were having their periods. In the end, both turned out to be fails.
The second one example – Testament performing on the same day as Gojira, in the same damn city.
I agree India has a big issue with Old School and New School supporters, they just can’t stand each other. But this was ridiculous. More so because the Gojira concert was announced around May-June, and it is obvious that the intention of the Testament gig organisers were to eliminate the debutant event management firm. Joe Duplantier, frontman of Gojira, when asked what he felt about this, said –
“It sucks man. It’s totally fucked up. How the fuck did that happen?”
What turned out in the end was a super failure of both the concerts.
Apart from these, the fans are exhausted. That could be seen clearly during the Harley Rock Riders III show. A free show it was and the turn-out? Not more than that of a college fest.
If things go this way, we are not looking at the next Japan. It will be the next Hiroshima in the making (in terms of total black-out of concerts). Everyone would love to see International bands performing, but not if you jam up the calendars like this. Give the fans their space, work out a sort of a concert window to find the best time to host them (I’m sure you guys are better at Mathematics than me). And please no clashing of dates, it sucks when that happens. Hopefully 2013 would be a better year. Keeping my fingers crossed.
