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Big 69 : India’s First Metal Pilgrimage

Metalheads who think the scene is dying… there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Mumbai is now ready to get its very own metal music festival, called BIG69. Supported by Pepsi MTV Indies and managed by BAJAAO Consulting and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., BIG69 will bring the biggest names in the rock music arena to India. In its very first year, BIG69 will showcase UK’s leading heavy metal legends Carcass and progressive metal act Sikth as the headliners. The festival will take place at the Richardson & Cruddas industrial compound in Byculla on the 17th and 18th of January, 2015 and the lineup includes Italian metallers Fleshgod Apocalypse and UK rap metallers Hacktivist along with some of the biggest Indian bands such as Bombay Metal Project and Joint Family, who will be reuniting for this festival after seven years of being defunct.
Carcass is one of biggest influences in the death/grindcore and melodic death metal genre. After disbanding in the mid 90s, Carcass reunited in 2007 for touring purposes, but the reunion became permanent in 2012 with a new lineup as drummer Daniel Wilding and guitarist Ben Ash joined founding members Bill Steer and Jeff Walker. With a 2013 release ‘Surgical Steel’ the band sets foot in India for the first time this January.
SikTh, who disbanded in 2008, have made a triumphant return in 2014 with a headlining set at the Download festival and are considered by many to be the godfathers of modern progressive metal. Vocalist Mikee Goodman said: “It has always been a dream to travel the world and play shows for myself and the rest of the band. It is an honour to be here right now. I heard some bands were recently coming to India to play. At last this chance has come for us and we are very excited to see and play in India!”

Fellow headliners Hacktivist who are considered to be one of the rising stars of the UK progressive metal scene and Fleshgod Apocalypse from Italy will be the other two international bands performing at the event. This festival will also give a platform to some of our very own Indian bands who have been performing in this genre. These include Nepal’s Underside and Indian metal biggies Demonic Resurrection, Undying Inc, Zygnema, Kryptos, Devoid and Noiseware. There is also something that young aspiring bands can look forward to. Pepsi MTV Indies is conducting a band hunt to choose two promising bands who will get a chance to play at the festival.

Apart from music, the festival will also have a special focus on art, with well-designed stages, art installations and the Indies KVLTure project – a special showcase of visual art, photographs and iconography associated with heavy metal. This will involve a number of collaborations with some of the finest artists and designers from the Indian metal scene who will create artwork and designs especially for the festival. Artists already on-board include Reuben Bhattacharya aka Visual Amnesia, Aaron Pinto, Avinash Jai Singh, Anirudh Singh aka Nuclear Puke, Gaurav Basu aka Acid Toad and Aaquib Wani. Limited edition prints of their artwork will be available for sale at the festival, along with special Indies KVLTure project merchandise and much more.

Festival managers BAJAAO were the company behind the now-defunct cult underground venue B69, which is still remembered fondly by the city’s metalheads. BAJAAO, along with the festival’s promoters and partners, is very excited about this upcoming new event that is to be added to the city’s annual calendar. Festival promoter Ashutosh Pande said: “We’ve had a long association with the Indian metal scene. BIG69 is our effort to take metal to the masses and to fill the void that B69 left behind. We intend to replicate the B69 experience at a much larger scale by giving Mumbai its very own Festival director Himanshu Vaswani said: “Mumbai hasn’t had a big music festival in a long time and we’re very excited to be doing a metal festival on this scale. We’re making sure that everything – from the line-up and stages to the whole experience – is as big as it gets.”

Early bird tickets are available at www.insider.in/big69 at Rs. 2500 for a two day pass. School and college students can avail of a special discounted pass at Rs. 1500. Find all the details at www.big69.in.

Watch this space for updates!

DR announce ‘All Star’ show, invite demos

Demonic ResurrectionIndian metallers Demonic Resurrection have announced an ‘All Star’ show on the 5th of November at the home of Mumbai’s metal shows B69. When quizzed about the ‘All Stars’ Demonstealer was quoted saying ‘We’re basically inviting our favourite singers from different Mumbai bands to join us on stage and sing their favourite DR songs, we’re also having a bunch of our favourite bass players do the same since Husain will be somewhere in the mountains at that time’. The gig is one of the pre-parties being held prior to the Bacardi NH7 Weekender Festival where Demonic Resurrection will be performing as well and have promised fans a truly ‘Demonic’ experience.

The band has once again thrown open the opportunity to open the show to a new band inviting demos to be sent for the band to review. “We strongly believe in giving new bands a chance to play alongside us because we think there are heaps of great bands out there that just need to be given a chance, when we started out it was the bigger bands at that point like Naked Earth, Fate and Sceptre who gave us a chance opening for them and we’ve come a long way since then, we’d like to give the young bands of today that same chance and we have a lot of faith that they will deliver a kickass performance given their drive and passion for metal.’ said Demonstealer.

Interested bands can email their demo links and band bios to demonic.resurrection.online@gmail.com by Sunday 23rd October.

Θ PM – Tribute to Peter Steele with Bhayanak Maut and Devoid

B69 will again be host to what seems like a good metal gig, with Bhayanak Maut and Devoid, along with a tribute gig that’s being played in memory of Peter Steele from Type O Negative, featuring band members from Blakc, Zygnema, Stark Denial, Providence, Seher, Circles, Pin Drop Violence, Morticide, Zohak etc. Entry, as always, is 150 bucks. Gates open 7 pm onwards.

Indianfestation: Gig Review(Mumbai)

B69 is now a name synonymous with indoor metal gigs in Mumbai. The shady little place with the paanwala downstairs, and ‘Vasant’ the bar right across the street has now gained quite a reputation, even going so far as to host the Hacride gig, which I missed. So when I herad that Fractalline would be playing there, I dragged my lazy ass to the venue well before time. Supporting them were Vizia, Sceptre, and a surprise act.

Soundchecks etc went smoothly, though everything did get a little delayed because of the jam-packed schedule the headliners had(Fractalline had a clinic before the gig, forgive the pun) , and though it started a little late, Vizia quickly got on stage and started their set.

I hadn’t heard these guys before, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Their music was a bit of a menagerie of core-ish breakdowns, catchy melody lines and thrashy riffs. One good thing about their live sound was that the bass was coming through really well, and added to the experience. They had tons of energy, were adequately tight and had enough punch in their songs to keep the crowd interested, though the songwriting front can definitely be improved upon.

Next up were Sceptre, one of the older thrash metal bands in the city. These veterans dished out an interesting array of riffs, though most of them weren’t as audible as I would’ve like them to be. This was mostly due to the excessively muddy guitar tone. The plus point was the drums though, which came through very crisp and clean, and Sanju Aguiar(who also plays with Devoid) delivered some incredible shred-happy solos to top it off. So far so good.

Next up was the surprise act, which turned out to be none other than Bhayanak Maut, who’ll be performing at Norway’s Inferno festival this year.I’d last seen them live at GIR 2008, when they opened for Satyricon. Though I wasn’t very impressed then, the band has since sharpened their live act to a point where B69’s walls couldn’t really hold in the sound. 7 string guitars, a 5 string bass, a drummer pumping full of adrenaline, and two vocalists who have an incredible stage presence. Bhayanak Maut kicked it off with “Chakna For Church’ off their latest EP Metastasis, and the dual vocal assault, combined with the catchy, viral riffs set off a mosh that only got more intense as the song progressed. The band seemed to be intent on having as much fun as they could, as they got Fractalline vocalist Jordan for a song on stage. Seriously, three metal vocalists are better than two, and it was a treat for the ears. For another song, they got Chronic Phobia bassist/vocalist Pratika on stage, who growled out Vinay’s parts pretty well. Bhayanak Maut had stirred shit up with old favourites like ‘tit for twat’, and it was time for Fractalline to get on stage and take it further.

Enter KP with an 8 string guitar, Sandesh with a 5 string bass, and Jordan(vocals) and Ray(drums) with lots of gusto. The band started after what seemed like an okay soundcheck, but when ‘The Circle’ began, vocals were conspicuously absent on the PA. This was soon remedied, however, though the microphone issue would continue throughout the set. This did very little to mar their enthusiasm. Technical death/thrash not exactly in the veins of Necrophagist, but more along the dirty tech death sound of Gorguts/Demilich. Precise, crushing riffs complemented by some very well thought out bass lines, and it seemed odd that in spite of having a single guitarist, the sound was pretty epic. Jordan managed to dish out some memorable vocals on both ends of the spectrum, and Ray provided the precise percussive backdrop that the band needed. Moving from their more technical songs like ‘Suppressing Reality’ to songs with a more old school feel, they got the crowd moshing, and KP came down, playing right in the middle of the pit, not letting a single note out of its place, which made for a truly memorable live experience.

There were a few reasons to complain, as is seemingly inevitable with all gigs – The ‘surprise’ vocal jam when Vinay jumped on to the stage for a song turned out to be a complete failure due to the microphone not working, and no amount of juggling around with cables and microphones managed to completely resolve the issue. But the solid musicianship managed to overshadow these minor glitches, and rendered the gig a success, though I was surprised at what seemed like a mild turnover. So spread the word, and make sure you attend the gig wherever you are!

P.S – You can grab Serotura and Fractalline CD’s at the venue, not to mention Fractalline shirts.

P.P.S – Keep watching this space for a truly interesting Fractalline interview.

Here are some of the pics from the gig, courtesy Pratika Prabhune(including the one at the top). Thanks a lot!