The Bacardi Black Rock Arena kicked off on Saturday, November 19 at the Bacardi NH7 Weekender with a classic scene lineup of rock acts from around the country. With a bar proclaiming “Pop is dead” in red neon (with the heads of pop stars, including Sonu Nigam, on a conveyor belt), the six bands performing on the stage brought some quality alternative, grunge and electro-rock to a packed “Magarrrrpatta” audience.
Blackstratblues
One track in and Warren Mendonsa announces this set’s going to be completely different from the others. Though he played a good amount of unreleased music, the biggest change was the inclusion of Mumbai singer-songwriter Nikhil D’Souza on vocals. And while anyone with a good grasp over the obvious would agree that Mendonsa and his fellow instrumentalists hit the mark with great precision, D’Souza unfortunately, was quite a buzzkill. Now we’re entirely unsure as to whether he wasn’t at his best on stage, but what was otherwise a highlight set never ended up being as enjoyable.
Blackstratblues
The Circus
The young New Delhi alt-rockers played a bunch of new material as the harsh afternoon sun beat down on the Bacardi Black Rock Arena. The band interspersed a series of new songs like ‘Bats’ and ‘Gardens’ with material from their debut album From Space. The bands was on form for set staples like ‘Japanese Rebellion’ and ‘My Humps’, but the new material was lost in a blaze of angular guitaring, distorted bass and the piercing sun.
The Circus
Blakc
Mumbai alt-grunge act Blakc played the sundown set at the Rock Arena as it packed up with black t-shirt-sporting, foam finger-rocking fans. The band played material from their debut album Choking In A Dream, encouraged by a strong contingent of Pune fans. While the band delivered a tight set, their fairly lacklustre take on ’90s post-grunge leaves much to be desired.
Blakc
menwhopause
As has been the case for most of menwhopause’s 2011 touring calendar, the band performed as a quartet sans vocalist Sarabjit Chaddha, with bassist Randeep Singh filling in behind the mic. The band played an incredibly energetic set comprising mostly of material from their second studio album Easy. They also played material from a promised third album, titled Haze, in a set that provided one of the big highlights of the day. Right at the end of the set the band played an almost metal version of encore regular ‘Kaatil Sardar’ prompting several singalongs and ROTFLs. Mega.
menwhopause
Tough On Tobacco
Post the resonating high that menwhopause left the Bacardi Black Rock Arena with, the big challenge that Tough On Tobacco faced was keeping the energy levels of the audience up. Luckily, frontman Sidd Coutto was up to the task. ToT played a tight set of material from their debut album The Happy Goat along with tracks from their upcoming second studio album Big Big Joke. Set highlights included a particularly upbeat rendition of ‘Love Love Love’, set closer ‘Smoke Some Ganja’ and a shoutout to Scribe’s ‘I Love You Pav Bhaji’ stall.
Tough On Tobacco
Pentagram
The Mumbai electro-rock giants closed the Bacardi Black Rock Arena with a set that saw a singalong to frontman Vishal Dadlani’s pronunciation of the word “Magarpatta” (he compared it to how people in the capital pronounce the word “generator”). Penta opened with the bass-heavy Eristoff Invasion Festival version of ‘Drive’ and then went on to play a majority of material from their new album Bloodywood including ‘In My Head’, ‘Lovedrug Climbdown’ and ‘Mental Zero’. Dadlani had to literally run to The Dewarists Stage immediately after Pentagram wrapped up to join Imogen Heap on their The Dewarists collab ‘Minds Without Fear’.
Pentagram
Check out the lineup of day three at the Bacardi Black Rock Arena here.
For live updates from the festival grounds, follow the official live blog. Certain sets are also being live streamed on our Facebook page.
Photos by Shiv Ahuja, Prateek Biswas, Maanas Singh, and Naman Saraiya
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