High on eccentricity and insanity at NH7

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It’s a little before 8.30 pm on Sunday evening. The biggest crowd in three days (a few thousand or so at the very least) has thronged to the Eristoff Wolves’ Den stage. People squeeze past each other to get a good view of the stage. The battle of supply and demand at the bar has been over for a while and it’s fair to say demand handed supply a crushing defeat. More than 50 bands have performed over three days. This, ladies and gentlemen is the main event. The dark stage is suddenly bathed in a

green hue as the smoke machine belches out thick swirling clouds and the guitar amp crackles to life, cutting through the electric atmosphere as Asian Dub Foundation takes the stage.
Spare a thought for Parikrama, who have the unenviable task of headlining the Bacardi Black Rock Arena stage (which is no more than a hop, skip and jump away) at the very same time. But then, that’s how it goes with multi-stage music festivals, where simultaneous performances often leave audiences with tough choices to make and the Bacardi NH7 Weekender was no different. Indian Ocean’s set clashed with Pentagram’s on Saturday, while Zero overlapped (albeit minimally) with Split, the mighty Raghu Dixit Project also saw a section of its set coincide with ADF’s on Sunday and so on.
The Weekender, which incidentally is the first to be organised by Motherswear (the festivals division of Only Much Louder) had been devised to provide Indian audiences with the sort of festival one gets to experience abroad. With only one tiny exception (the array of band-specific merchandise was nowhere near wide enough), the festival ticked all the boxes. And then it drew some more boxes and ticked those too. A pleasant and safe venue, beautifully themed and decorated stages with their own vibes and ambience, big production values, good quality of sound, a polite and non-violent group of security guards, clean (relatively) toilets, and a whole host of sideshows to keep the punters interested (more on this later) were only a few of those aforementioned boxes.
A pretty good indication of the buzz generated by a festival is the reaction in the city that plays host. From bafflement on the first day as small sea of black T-shirted metalheads poured into Koregaon Park, the mood shifted to curiosity on the second day as people poked their heads around the venue and finally, involvement on the last day as locals actually began arriving in large numbers. This included a gentleman in his mid-forties or so who for some reason, wanted to buy a weekend pass at around 7 pm on the final day.
Emblazoned across the chest of said black T-shirts were the names of all sorts of bands from Sepultura to Black Sabbath. However, the joint winners in the most “worn” band name of the day were Led Zepellin and Dimmu Borgir. After a slow start and Pune band Noiseware’s jarring cover of Smooth Criminal, business began to pick up and the audience began to grow. But that didn’t stop fighter jets from the nearby Air Force base, flying overhead from drowning out all the music from time to time. A few hours later, by the time Scribe frontman Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy had busted out some break dance moves and an inebriated Sahil Makhija had put on his “happiest performance” for Demonic Resurrection to date, one boy had twisted his ankle in a Bhayanak Maut moshpit and was in a world of pain — the festival’s first casualty.
Day two saw a lot more action with the Dewarists Stage and the Wolves Den opening up for business and featuring a variety of acts and a whole lot of sideshows. Exhibit NH7, the “organic” art exhibition saw artists painting on eight feet by five feet canvasses that continued to be painted on until Sunday night. At the more bizarre end, Khiladi bassist and singer (among other things) Rohit “P-Man” Pereira hosted the first of two Koffee with P-Man segments. Indian Ocean’s trademark onstage charisma and the second of two insanely energetic performances by Pentagram on consecutive nights rounded off a solid second day.
As the final day arrived, the number of audience members too had increased massively. Each of the three main stages was heaving and while P-Man was having some more silly fun being “in conversation with…” a bunch of performers, Zero was playing the first show of its Two Zero One Zero India tour and a rude heckler achieved what was believed to be impossible — making Raghu Dixit stop smiling (only momentarily, though).
It was around that time that the green hue began spiralling and swirling and ADF stormed onto stage and took the weekend’s biggest audience on a hyperactive journey through dubstep, ragga, dancehall, punk and a whole lot of other genres of music. After ephemeral threats to do so all weekend, Pune, it seemed had finally come to the party. Organiser and OML co-founder Bobby Talwar slyly said, “An organiser is never completely happy with any festival, but I am quite satisfied.” Indian Ocean manager Dhruv Jagasia who was part of the organising team was equally satisfied but baulked at a question about the sort of budget that went into the Weekender. “A lot,” was his reply and added, “Let’s just say none of us will be getting a salary for the next year.”
OML CEO and one of the brightest sparks in the music scene, Vijay Nair who had reportedly not had a wink of sleep all weekend and was seen rushing around, wore one of the widest grins at the end of the festival. A weary but pleased Vijay summed up his feelings rather succinctly, saying “I’m very happy.” Bring on the next edition of the Weekender!