Rocking out

Rock-Lovers' much-anticipated music festival Great Indian Rock 2010 rocked the capital on Saturday and Sunday, December 18 and 19. This year, the festival featured four international bands wooing Indian metalheads.

Rock-Lovers' much-anticipated music festival Great Indian Rock 2010 rocked the capital on Saturday and Sunday, December 18 and 19. This year, the festival featured four international bands wooing Indian metalheads. For the past thirteen years, GIR has served as a platform for Indian bands to showcase their talent and build a fan base. True to its principle, GIR brought together the country's upcoming bands like Colossal Figures, Lucid Recess and October for the audience.



Demonic Resurrection, a Mumbai-based metal band, opened the festival's first day in Delhi with an initially lukewarm response from the crowd. But the band's extraordinary music and vocalist Sahil Makhija's endeavours paid off as the metalheads started headbanging to their famous song, The Undying Surge Of Vengeance. Though enjoying the performance, the typical Delhi crowd still couldn't resist the temptation of sitting at the back and munching popcorn.

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Guitar

What finally got the crowd moving was the Norwegian band, Purified In Blood, which played an interesting set from their latest album, Under Black Skies. Amazed by the energy of the crowd, the guitarist Tommy Svela revealed, "The crowd was awesome, these guys appreciate bands they haven't even heard before. It was surprising to see people going insane."



Tesseracts, from the UK shoved up the energy level for the entry of Viking metal band Enslaved. The band's unique sound inspired a mad moshpit action. The band 'Enslaved' the fans with their act. The guitarist 'Ice Dale's slick metallic riffs wooed the crowd in a Slash-like style.

As fans got wilder and the night turned chillier, the long-wait for Meshuggah came to an end. But this was just the beginning as with their first song, Rational Gaze, the metal merchants from Sweden made it clear that their sound isn't just 'Straws Pulled At Random'. True to their name, the band was at their craziest best. Meshuggah made the headbangers Bleed with joy with their bone-crushing sound.

As Sunneith Revankar, vocalist of Indian metal band Bhayanka Maut summed up, "It was absolutely phenomenal! I cried, and I feel absolutely no shame in admitting it. The gods descended and I was fortunate enough to watch them two feet from the stage."