underside

After months of anticipation and last minute changes, the third edition of Insurrection finally took place on Sunday, 15th June, at Bak Bak Bar in Bangalore. Organized by Sound Awake, the gig promised a diverse line up including an international headliner- Underside from Nepal. It was an exhausting gig, in a positive and negative sense, but mostly worth our while.

After a two hour delay, the show started with Analyzed Consequences getting on stage and struggling with technical glitches. The opening backing track kept stopping because of the loose connections and the unstable stage. That got them off to a (literally) shaky start, but they powered through their set. Though labeled a djent act, they were more modern progressive metal. Despite being an instrumental outfit, they managed to keep the audience just as involved. Unfortunately, the brilliant guitar solos were almost inaudible to those away from the stage, and the china cymbal was too loud, often drowning out the rest of the instruments. But Analyzed Consequences was one hell of a tight act, and surely is a band we need to watch out for.

Bad Taste went up next, and left a bad taste in all our mouths after their set. The bass was out of tune, and the band as a whole seemed unrehearsed. I was expecting something better from Charlie and his new lineup, but was disappointed. Thankfully, Grossty followed, and as always, they were so much fun! Sudden surprises with “Rasputin” and ‘koothu’ beats added the entertainment quotient to the evening, but even their regular stuff livened up the venue, with the audience shouting “TV is full of crap” along with the vocalist. They got my vote for band of the evening, for sure.

Sound glitches continued during Djinn and Miskatonic’s soundcheck, delaying the already delayed show by a few more minutes. Drummer Siddarth capitalized on this and kept the audience entertained with a couple of drum solos. It was great to see Djinn back in action, but I felt that they shouldn’t have been made to go on stage soon after Grossty. The two bands are at the far two ends of the spectrum when it comes to energy levels (in terms of genre, and not performance). Organizers should have considered this when putting the running order together.

Next up was Threinody– Bangalore’s very own old school thrash band. Theirs was a short and tight set with a mix of their popular originals like “In Extremis” and “Surrender to the Blade” along with a cover of Kreator’s “Phobia”. Guitarist Josh has been replaced by Siddarth Kamath, and though the latter did a fab job, I missed the guitar richness that Josh added to Threinody’s sound. Siddarth Naidu is a great frontman, and though very casual, he always makes it a point to personally thank some people in the audience, and this time, even called bassist Narayan on stage to wish him for his birthday!

Mumbai’s Albatross were up after Threinody, and also had a very short set. There were technical glitches again, and the speakers kept going off and on, causing quite a bit of distraction midway through their performance. They’ve played a couple of times in Bangalore, but somehow, have always been restricted because of a lack of time. They again had an abbreviated performance of only about four songs, and that was very disappointing. And it probably angered me a lot more when the band after them, Final Surrender, got to play for almost an hour! Though I do understand that the concept of favoritism shouldn’t exist between local and outstation bands, I expected there to be fairness in terms of time allotted to all the bands too. Final Surrender brought out some decent metalcore, but did not work on how they sounded on the P.A. The drums were ridiculously loud, and the bass occasionally competed with that. Though the people immediately near the stage seemed to be having a blast, the band sounded unbalanced outside.

Underside ended the night with a set that mostly comprised of their originals. They wasted no time in between, and were high on energy throughout. Sadly, people started trickling out by the end of the night, but that didn’t stop the band from delivering.

On the whole, Insurrection was a decent gig, but with very bad time management. I expected there to be chaos because of the last minute change in venue (from Ion Bar and Kitchen to Bak Bar Bar), but things seemed to be going smoothly. Sound problems seem to have become a given at most gigs, so it would help if there were fewer bands and more time allotted to each. That way, each of them gets to play for a decent amount of time, and in case of issues cropping up, nobody compromises too much. The turnout was fairly good (236 attendees, to be precise) and it was a relief to see that things aren’t looking that bleak just yet. Finally, three cheers to Sound Awake for keeping the scene alive, without the genre bias!

Watch out for the new ‘Videos’ section on Headbangers India! Footage from the gig and more… Coming soon!