Chennai Live Bandhunt 3:Gig Review

Chennai Live Bandhunt is one of the best platforms any band can get in South India. And this year Bandhunt got a lot bigger than it already was, by extending it’s auditions to Bangalore. The Chennai Live Bandhunt final was at the Museum Theatre, probably the best venue anyone could have thought about in the city of Madras(Yes, I still prefer to call it Madras). Chennai Live Bandhunt had given us some really crazy bands, 

Wolf’s Lair, Solder and The Family Cheese. Now it was just a wait to watch the next big bang on 23^rd of September.

The show was opened by Blues Conscience, 1st runners up in Bandhunt 2010 who became one of the premier blues band in India today. As they started fully suited up Blues Act with a song paying tribute to Janis Joplin followed by cover of ‘Five Long Years’ by B.B King, Anek Ahuja lead everyone to their blues. That was followed by their original ‘Morning Afters’. My personal favourite in their set was ‘Kamasutra’, no you can’t have any idea about how awesome that song is until you hear the song live.

Now was definitely the time for the Competition to start off…

Desat was the 1^st band to come on stage. The only Metal Band in the Bandhunt finals pulled off some deadly shreds by Victor. They pulled off a quite a deadly metal act. Taking your listeners from their blues to an era of metal can be a hell of a task. But as they covered ‘Ruin’ by Lamb Of God, there stood a row of headbangers before the stage. I could see Prithvi Jerry from Semi-finalist Band Distortion headbanging on his seat. The keyboard melodies sounded crazily devilish with Victor’s solos. They could do more with variations though. The museum theatre boomed with energy with they played Power,Impious Jihad, and Nostalgia.

The next band was Fringe Pop from Bombay(yes, I like to call it Bombay). Call it shy or arrogant, but they don’t like talking much about themselves. They started playing right away. Guys, people need some time to adjust to the sudden changes in genre that was taking place from blues to Metal to funk. Fringe Pop had a very different sound to their band, which gives you an Arctic Monkeys or Whitestripes feel in their music. They had huge problems when it came to sound. The bass was sounding muffled, not sharp enough for the listeners to appreciate Aaron on bass. Shreyas’s vocals sounded like a shrill at times. But as they played their set, people went through a mix of pop, blues and Rock n Roll mood.

Fringe Pop at Chennai Live Bandhunt 3 (Photo Courtesy: Hisham Saifudeen)

It was high time for Chennai’s 1st band to come on stage. Dwhetstone, a Christian Rock Band opened their set with ‘Dark Temptations’. They had Very powerful Drumming. As one of my friends says, he could have kissed his feet. Though their 1st two tracks had similar melodies, they got some seriously amazing response from audience, the best so far. The vocals came out to be really weak when we compare them to the guitars which ripped the stage apart. My favourite track in their set was ‘Breaking Down’ which had some kick-ass Double Bass. They closed their set with ‘Addiction’ with a girl headbanging on the drum solo. How amazing is that!

The News

The News started next. This Bangalorean Band had a very happy, catchy, groovy Blues inspired Rock sound and guess what, they had an acoustic on stage too. As they played their originals, Lucky Summer day, Shell, Happy Happy Sunday and Summertime, I could see everyone in the Museum theatre smiling. It was like, with every chord they played, they were spreading happiness. I still can’t stop humming “I’m going down down”, the lyrics were so freaking catchy. My favourite in their set was ‘Happy Happy Sunday’. Raghav on keys was kick-ass.

Black Letters

Now it was time for some mallu action, Black Letters which hails from all over south India was on stage. They started with their trademark song, kamikaze, which was their official entry for Hard Rock Rising earlier this year. They had a very groovy bass with mind-blowing drumming. If you were there, you could have caught Shashank, drummer of Franks got the Funk and Junkyard groove dancing, which was an surprise additional entertainment everyone enjoyed. After Kamikaze, they played Firebox, Roam, Tomorrow, You say, a dedication to all the beautiful ladies in the house and ended their set with Settle Down. ‘Roam’ was my favourite which is gonna be there in their upcoming album. Yeah Black letters is recording their album with John Thomas as their production engineer now. ‘Roam’ had a very groovy intro which kicked off into a sensational song. Sharath Iyer was amazing on vocals.

Harshenn from The F16s

The F16s, an amazing Chennai Rock band, takes you back to the golden era of Indie music. They had formed very recently, only to reach the Chennai Bandhunt auditions to get all the judges raving about them. They started off pretty great but had problems with sound, got slightly out of tune. But they had an amazing track called Avalanche which you should definitely hear. If they could have just forgot they were in the finals and played as they had played in the auditions, it would have been a whole different story. They also played a song paying tribute to Martin Luther King. The F16s is one of the crazy sounding bands I have heard out in Chennai, but it wasn’t their day.

It was time for the wild card entry of the day, Rightu Vidu, which was the Only Tamil band in the Bandhunt Finals. They played their own version of ‘Rukkumani’ an A.R.Rehman classic. As Harish and Rohit sang together, it takes you to another dimension with some trippy percussions and keys. They weren’t that tight, but sounded decent.

The Family Cheese:
cause we love that breakfast

As the seven finalists finished their sets, last year’s winners, The Family Cheese who have moved to Mumbai now, had come back to Chennai to show us some love.  They started with the trademark smile on the face of Homi baba on the Bass. They had Conrad reeves from Swarnabhoomi Academy of music as an addition to their regular line-up just for the show. As Apoorv a.k.a Lala opened the set with his guitar intro, no one needed any booze or  *ahem* to trip anymore. As Conrad and Lala shared lead guitars and Homi being always kick-ass on bass(In Live from the Console, Bombay, he played his bass with a water bottle; how cool is that), Yohan went crazy on the tempo. Lala’s solos had awsome carnatic influence to his solos. As they started off ‘You and I are’, Lala’s guitar strap came off. But he was still playing the guitar as he struggled to put the strap back on. Yohan closed their set with a Drum solo.

The show was headlined by judges of bandhunt finale, who played a mesmerizing set with Yuri Martin Juarez Yllesces and Conrad Reeves on Guitars, Arthur Kell on Bass, Ayman Bouilida on Drums and Joel Thihlman on Piano.

The Chennai Live Bandhunt finale was judged by Yuri Martin Juarez Yllesces, Arthur Kell, Paul Jacob and Sudheen Prabhakar.

Its was an amazing show. It was heavenly to witness the best musicians across south playing in the museum theatre in Chennai, a city that doesn’t get a lot of live music.

The News from Bangalore stood 1st, followed by Dwhetstone, 1st runners up and Black letters, 2nd runners up. 

Dwhetstone from Chennai, 1st Runners Up