JOIN USIt was a fun weekend for the visitors of Phoenix MarketCity, Whitefield. With three bands back-to-back from Friday to Sunday, the music was some respite from shopping for the eager mall-goers.
Friday was an enjoyable evening with a gig by ‘Elv-World Music’, a classic fusion band. A collaboration of professional artistes who play music without any barriers, the sound of the band was clearly inspired by music around the world.
Each of the musicians was a solo artiste in his own right and the crowd swayed to the music of the night, which included the band’s renditions of tunes by Jaco Pastorious, James Brown and Tupac among others.
“We played two and a half hours of music that spanned Brazilian, funk, jazz, Latin, Cuban, Calypso and some Bollywood numbers.
The crowd was less as it was raining and the response could have been better had it been a Saturday. But the band still had fun and people came to the stage and danced with us, which was nice.
It was a mixed crowd of youngsters and working professionals and while the experience could have been better, the vibe still worked,” said Sujit Mukherjee, the band’s percussionist and composer.
“In India, people love Bollywood from what I understand and the future plan for the band is to have lecture demonstrations along with the performance. In doing so, they will understand, for instance, the difference between Brazilian rhythms and Indian rhythms,” he added.
Saturday saw a performance by ‘Spaghettify’, a hard rock Bangalore-based band that makes music with the hope that it will draw others into the type of music they love. It saw two metalheads, one rock fanatic, a prog rock genius and a musical diva come together and put their mutual love for performing and making music to use.
The band comprised Joewin Shamalina on vocals, Vamshi Krishna on guitars, Joel Koshy on guitars, Harish Jayanth on bass and Amol Mahendra on drums.
‘Spaghettify’ played a mixed set of six original compositions like ‘Anger Management’, ‘Psych’ and ‘I’m Missing You’ and covers of bands like ‘Junkyard Groove’ and ‘Audioslave’.
“Since we played for three hours, we had to repeat some songs. But it was a pretty good experience for us despite it being a tough crowd to crack. Most people in the audience probably listen to music that’s different from what we play but still appreciated it.
We probably had high expectations from the response but after all, who comes to a mall to watch a band perform?” said Joel, the lead guitarist.
On Sunday, Aghor, an innovative fusion band incorporating a vast spectrum of musical colours, flavours and textures, took to the stage.
With evocative music that put the listeners in a mellow mood, they attempted to inspire the artiste within and presented a very unusual set for the crowd.
Aghor comprised Nirmal Gartaula on lead guitars, Mario Stevens on bass, Jataveda Banergee on vocals and rhythm guitar, Karthik Mani on drums, percussion, FX and konnakol and Bharath Kumar on keyboard.