Chennai has been cribbing for years that not enough international acts grace its shores; that only Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore get the cream of musical pickings. The Prodigy, Metallica, Imogen Heap, and even Bryan Adams, bypassed the city during their tours. However, this trend is about to change as the city welcomes the Chennai Global Music Festival.
The event will take place on the grounds of the biggest mall in the city, Express Avenue, across three days, and will have performances from 24 international and local artists. The range of genres at the festival range from rock, electro-pop, grunge and hip hop to fusion, folk, jazz, blues, and country. The lineup features local Chennai acts like ‘Folk You’ rockers Junkyard Groove (check out our review of their gig at Mood Indigo here), fledgling rock/blues band Grey Shack, indie-rockers Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets, jazz/funk band Groove #3, and grunge band Null Friction (interesting titbit about this Chennai trio – their gig at 1pm on January 15 is a reunion gig, their first performance together since 2010. They plan to put out an EP in March).
Chennai will also welcome an array of artists from across the globe including France, Sweden, Reunion Islands, USA, and Malaysia along with collaborations with seasoned musicians from Chennai, Bengal, and Rajasthan.
The festival is the brainchild and the efforts of festival director, Eddie Prithiviraj of event and artist management company Exodus, along with Sujit D’Souza, founder of Lemontree media. Prithiviraj tells us about what he hopes for the Chennai event
At the festival the lineup is good, there are huge names that are coming over. The whole point is creating a future, the future of what the festival is going to carry, that is 2013, which I am already planning for.
Chennai has great potential for musicians, and though the city is a little conservative and they may not venture out much, unless something is happening in Bangalore and then they venture out (laughs)… What I’m trying to do is bring in a real festival with the maximum we have got for Chennai.
Lineup
January 13
Grey Shack
TH Subash Chandran, Ganesh Kumar, S Harikrishnan, Shankar Tucker, Colin Hinton, Michael Gam, and HN Bhaskar.
Vinayakram
George Brooks, Dr Lalitha and Band
Chinnapoonu, Karthik, Raju Baul with Paul Jacob
Jonas Hellborg and Selvaganesh
Junkyard Groove
January 14
Adam & The Fish Eyed Poets
Ziskakan
Piano Chat
Mattias, Selvaganesh, Uma Shankar, and Mahesh Vinayakram
Paul Jacob and Blaaze
Vikku Vinayakram
Moongai
Susheela Raman
January 15
Groove #3 featuring Benny Dayal
Shruti
Null Friction
Mesparrow
Uma Shankar, Gino Bank and troupe
Bud McMuffin
TM Stevens, Ranjit Barot, and Selvaganesh
Indus Creed
El Manos
Mukhtiyar Ali, Chinnapoonu and Paul Jacob
Ticket prices are available at Rs 200 to Rs 750, at the venue.
One of the highlights will be the big fusion collaboration on January 13, featuring clarinet player, Shankar Tucker. Check out his ‘O Re Piya/Rolling in the Deep’ mash up he did as part of his YouTube video series, The Shruti Box, below.
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