Season of concerts by international stars

The likes of Westlife, Goo Goo Dolls, Deep Purple and DVLM are performing in Bengaluru in the coming weeks

Bengaluru’s music gig season kicked off with Irish singer-songwriter Ronan Keating last weekend. The coming weeks will see a line-up of iconic international artistes like Westlife, Deep Purple, Goo Goo Dolls, and multiple Grammy winner Tinariwen (from Mali). Here’s a look at what to expect:

Westlife 

The Irish pop group is making its India debut with the multi-city The Wild Dreams Tour. The band will perform at Bhartiya Mall Of Bengaluru along Thanisandra Main Road on Saturday.

Formed in Dublin in 1998, the group disbanded in 2012. Since their reunion in 2018, members Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, and Nicky Byrne have released their 20th studio album — ‘Wildest Dreams’. The current world tour kicked off in 2022. The concert in Bengaluru will feature some of their biggest hits such as ‘Swear it again’, ‘Flying without wings’, ‘If I let you go’, and ‘Uptown girl’.

Dimitri Vegas, Like Mike 

Brothers Dimitri Thivaios and Michael Thivaios aka Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike (DVLM) will perform this Saturday at Aruani Grid on Sarjapur Road, as part of Sunburn Arena. The EDM producer and DJ duo is known to cover a mix of genres like electro house, progressive house, Dutch house, psytrance and dance pop. One can expect to be treated to popular tracks such as ‘The hum’, ‘Mammoth’, ‘When I grow up’ and ‘Mexico’.

Deep Purple and Goo Goo Dolls

The British rock band Deep Purple and American rock outfit Goo Goo Dolls will headline Bandland, Bookmyshow’s brand-new rock music festival, next month. With iconic tracks like ‘Smoke on the water’ and ‘Highway star’, the former is considered the pioneer of modern rock music. “Bringing them back to India after a 22-year hiatus is momentous,” says Owen Roncon of Bookmyshow. Goo Goo Dolls, on the other hand, is best known for the singles ‘Iris’ and ‘Name’. The band’s latest album ‘Chaos in Bloom’ was released in July 2022.

American indie-rock band The War on Drugs and garage-punk outfit Amyl & The Sniffers will also take the stage at the festival, scheduled on December 16 and 17 at Embassy International Riding School in Tarunhunse Village.

Owen shares they are working “closely with local civic authorities” to ease traffic and ensure law and order is followed. “This will streamline the use of public and private transportation and traffic management, and facilitate the planning of crowd movement in and around the venue,” he says.

Echoes of Earth 

The festival that promotes sustainability is a highlight of the city’s annual music festival calendar. It will be held on December 2 and 3 at Embassy International Riding School.

This year, it will see names like three-time Grammy Award-winner Tinariwen (Mali), Karnatik singer Sid Sriram (US), Len Faki (Germany), Mezerg (France), Parra for Cuva (Germany), Mansur Brown (UK), and 8 Kays (Ukraine). “This year the theme is ‘Ensemble of the wild’ and the focus is on the Western Ghats. One of our stages has an installation inspired by Bhogeshwara, the elephant with the longest tusks in Asia. He died in 2022,” says Roshan Netalkar, founder and festival director.

It will have over 20 food stalls, multiple stations with RO drinking water, four different stages, and 250 toilets. “Since it is spread across such a huge area (100 acres), it will ensure the spectators are comfortable. We are also working with authorities to come up with a plan to ensure smooth flow of traffic at the entry and exit points,” he adds.

Cop says

“None of these concerts are on the main traffic corridors, so that’s good. These venues have been used for concerts before without resulting in major traffic issues. We will need to discuss with the organisers about the number of people they are expecting and parking space to make appropriate traffic arrangements,” says Anucheth M N, joint commissioner of police, traffic.