Musical soiree marks the finale

This year’s edition of the Bengaluru Habba, the ten-day cultural festival, came to a close with a grand ceremony hosted at the Palace Grounds on Sunday.

The occasion included some wonderful performances by talented dancers, musicians and singers.

The evening began with a dance event called Janapada Jatre, which was a mix of folk art forms, presented by local artistes. The audience was treated to many traditional dance numbers, such as pooja kunitha by Savitha Chinkurali, jogeraata by Shankaraiah, bees kamsale by Lingaiaha, dollu kunitha by Boodyappa, and veeragase by Jagadish. Other performances, such as yakshagana and patada kunitha, were put up by Srinivas Sastana and Prakash respectively. The audience was also treated to a performance of suggi kunitha by Ganapu Gowda. 

Next up was a performance by the popular rock band ‘Live Banned’, comprising Amrit Rao on vocals, Dhruv Kumar on guitar, Siddhart Kamath on keyboards, Dheerendra Doss on drums and Ravish Tirkey on bass. Famous for their flamboyant and high-energy performances, they set the perfect tone for the evening. They kept the mood at the event pepped up by belting out a few popular songs in English, Tamil and even Hindi — ensuring that each and every member of the audience was singing or clapping along.

Some of the songs that they performed included Chiku-Buku Raile, Rukumani Rukumani, Ringa Ringa, Jinke Marina, Du Hast and Nakku Mukka.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the presence of the popular singer Raghu Dixit on stage. With his folk-infused rock style of music, his performance was perfect for the occasion.

He and his group of musicians had the audience grooving to some popular tunes, such as Masti Ki Basti, Kodaganna Koli Nungitha, Lokadha Kaligi, Just Maatu Maatu Ali and Madeshwara, among others. Throughout, he moved across the stage, engaging the crowd and having them screaming for more.

However, he wasn’t the only talented voice on stage that evening. Vijay Prakash, the famous singer who is originally from Mysore, also delighted the audience with his upbeat performance. He belted out some of his popular numbers from movies like Kempegowda, Jogaiah and many others.