Live: Reverrse Polarity, Cassini’s Division, The Circus, Faridkot @ Blue Frog, Mumbai

The final Launchpad elimination gig was held at the Blue Frog on Monday, Feb 9. The four remaining bands in the competition participated for the final three slots. With Cassini’s Division and Faridkot being almost shoe-ins for two of those three, it was up to Reverse Polarity or The Circus to step up their game and make it to the final.

Ashutosh Phatak joined Bobby Talwar and Vishal Dadlani as a judge for the evening’s proceedings.

Hit ‘More’ for the full review, pics and the Indiecision.

Reverse Polarity played an average set that wasn’t as striking as their performance at the first elimination gig. Here’s a band that has almost Scribe-like potential but needs to make it work with songs that are both musically and lyrically relevant. It’s very unlikely that they’ll win Launchpad, but they should make good use of their post-Launchpad time recording and performing as much as they can.

Cassini’s Division were up next. They played ‘Caesar’ and ‘Glowworm’ (the latter can be found on Stupiditties) and were interesting to watch. Frontman Rahul Guha Roy can be very intense which works both for an against him. Both the songs they played were ‘safe’ in the sense that their content was political enough to get Dadlani’s attention, and alternative enough to get the crowd off with hooks.

The Circus were completely off today. After two decent performances in the previous eliminations, the band seemed loose and nervous. The bassist too was not as elasticky as he usually is. Their songs were largely unremarkable and they were clearly the band getting the boot at the end of the day’s proceedings.

Faridkot are the favourites to win Launchpad. They’ve nailed the Hindi-rock aesthetic and are tight and confident enough to win an Indian audience. We’ll be very surprised if they dont win the competition. They were asked to perform an encore by Dadlani, who is visibly taken by the band’s music.

Indiecision: B