While day three at the Bacardi Black Rock Arena saw fans of heavy music pour in from all over the country, the lineup meant a lot more to the locals who’d been deprived of good live metal for over a year. With every notable Pune venue that regularly played host to metal having shut down, a near perfect lineup on a beautiful stage with crisp sound was dreamlike. Despite staying active longer than any other stage on the day, the Bacardi Black Rock Arena remained fairly packed throughout. It aptly mirrored the ardency of Indian metal fans.
Skyharbor
New Delhi djent auteur Keshav Dhar took his bedroom-based Skyharbor project to the stage for a highly anticipated debut performance. A sizable portion of the crowd was particularly interested in this specific set, so an hour long delay helped people gather before the band began. Skyharbor played an entirely instrumental set, opting not to interact with the crowd and let the music flow seamlessly. From a technical standpoint, it would be no stretch to say Skyharbor sounded fucking brilliant. The project however is still not a fully-developed entity. With Dhar still in the process of putting the pieces together, this was honestly no indication of how a future Skyharbor set would sound like.
Skyharbor
Goddess Gagged
Mumbai progressive metal act Goddess Gagged’s set served as an album launch of sorts, with them putting out their debut full-length Resurfaces in conjunction with their performance. The band stuck to cuts off the album but played one new unreleased track somewhere in between. While slightly fuzzy, the band did sound great – executing their brand of tempestuous, atmospheric prog with finesse.
Goddess Gagged
Bhayanak Maut
Halfway through the Bhayanak Maut set, I left the stage for an interview behind the Pepsi Dub Station. I could faintly hear Vinay request the crowd to make way for something. A moment later I saw two security guards carrying a mangled dude all beat-up on a stretcher. ’nuff said.
Bhayanak Maut
Scribe
By now we’ve evolved a consensus on there being no such thing as a ‘normal’ Scribe set. The Mumbai band proved us right by unleashing their contorted brand of metal from amidst a courtroom-esque stage set-up. Scribe are as good showmen as they’re musicians, as the manner in which they engaged the crowd was perhaps the most effective that night.
Scribe
Demonic Resurrection
At the moment, Mumbai blackened death metal act Demonic Resurrection is the biggest of its kind in the country. Despite the slight drop in occupancy, Demonstealer and co. played an efficient set that managed to satisfy longtime fans. Although the particular vein of metal Demonic Resurrection concern themselves with isn’t as immensely popular in India at the moment, they did manage to keep the crowd interested.
Demonic Resurrection
Motherjane
Kochi alt-metal act Motherjane might have fallen behind the times a bit. But by consistently making music as they please, they’ve managed to maintain a large, devoted fanbase. They kept the Bacardi Black Rock Arena considerably packed despite a performance by the NH7 All-Stars running parallel to their set. They played a fairly staple set but it wasn’t hard to notice how much the crowd loved them regardless.
Motherjane
Photos by Prateek Biswas and Kunal Kakodkar
Follow all our coverage of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender 2011 here.
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