Channel [V]‘s Launchpad, “the baap of all rock band competitions in 2011″, in its new avatar as part of Indiafest, has declared a winner. Punk trio The Lightyears Explode from Mumbai beat bands like Goddess Gagged (Strawberry Fields 2011 winners) and AbraXas (Mood Indigo 2011 winners). Strangely enough, the Indiafest twitter was quite superlative about these two bands, but has nothing to say about the winners. The competition was held in two stages – the semi-finals in each city, and the finals in Goa. Previous winners of the competition include bands like Reverrse Polarity and Indigo Children.
We spoke to Saurabh Roy, vocalist of The Lightyears Explode, about their victory:
We were playing alongside bands like Goddess Gagged and AbraXas. We didn’t expect to win because while we were on stage, my pedal stopped working, stuff like that happened. But we played without thinking of the competition. We played the semifinals in Bombay at Firangi Paani, and we got to play a set of 25 minutes. In the finals, every band played two songs. We received Rs. 50,000 as prize money, along with some vouchers. We left promptly after, we didn’t stick around.
Fair enough. The band performs with humour metal act Workshop at NMIMS college today. Stream music from The Lightyears Explode below.
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