JOIN USAs part of the regional preliminary rounds for IIT-Delhi’s annual fest ‘Rendezvous’, slated to take place in late October, ‘Blitkrieg’, a battle of the bands competition took place at BFlat Bar recently. The event started a lot later than planned but the two participants put up an energetic performance.
Each band had a 30-minute slot to perform and show the judges what they had in store. ‘Quarantine’ was up first and the Bangalore-based metal band performed several of their original compositions including the grimy ‘Immortal Bone’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘Pandemonium’ and ‘Kill The Clown’. Thrash metal band ‘Fantom’ was next and performed songs like ‘The Hell Reigns A Sinful Hero’, ‘Hallucinate’ and ‘Electric Eye’ by ‘Judas Priest’.
‘Quarantine’ emerged the winners and will join the finalists from the other cities at the Delhi edition. The winning band at the finals will take home Rs 70,000 while the runners-up will go back Rs 30,000 richer.
“Our band’s music and reach has been growing over the last year. It was really fun playing here. A lot of bands have told us to participate in competitions and we came here to give it our best shot. We didn’t expect the audience to like us because we were a metal band but surprisingly, we had a lot of people cheering us,” said Rahul Raghu, vocalist of ‘Quarantine’.
The crowd, though few in number, had a good time. “I’m here for good music. I just want to headbang, drink a little and have a good time,” said Sachin, an audience member.
Following the competition, the judges of the event – members of local rock band ‘Solder’, took the stage. The headlining act had songs like ‘Irish Coffee’, ‘Believe’ and ‘All By Myself’ alongside a Beatles’ medley and other covers. Despite the metal overdose before them, they kept their groove going till the end of the night.
On judging the competition, drummer Joel Rozario said, “It was good to see how the two bands planned and played out their gig. They were both metal but adapted very different styles.” He added that the band loved the response they got for their own set. “It was a small, intimate set and we got a very energetic response. Everyone was grooving to our music. The venue is always lovely to play at,” he said.