INDIAN METAL FESTIVAL REVIEW
The inaugural edition of the Indian Metal Festival was held in India's metal capital, Bangalore last weekend, and turned out to be quite a remarkable one in both positive and negative aspects.
The festival, a much-hyped and highly anticipated event among Indian metalheads, delivered what mattered most : GOJIRA. The heavy metal quartet from France were the most-awaited band to hit Indian stages in the latter half of 2012, and they brought with them their trademark powerful and crushing music. Although there were snags in the organizing, the festival turned out to be adequately successful.
Promoted through the web, the event seemed very well-organized, which turned out to be an exact opposite of its reality. The gates were supposed to open by 11, but the organizers announced beforehand that the gates were to opened at 2. Groups of metalheads thronged the venue, a tiny Manpho Convention Center in Bangalore. The fans were a bit surprised when they heard news floating around of the event being postponed to 4 o' clock. Eventually, the gates opened at nearly 5.
Two Indian bands, namely Escher's Knot, from Bangalore, and Agnostic, from Guwahati had been scrapped even though they were on the bill, the organizers citing "time pressure" to be an excuse for their exclusion. Many remarked on how the two bands' dreams of sharing a stage with the legendary Gojira were shattered, and that the bands deserved to be treated better.
The show began in a while, with Gutslit, death grind from Mumbai, receiving a poor response from the crowd as they played a short setlist of about 3 or 4 songs. The audio wasn't great, and the guttural vocals were not very audible.
Next on stage was Eccentric Pendulum. Famous and home-grown, the Bangalore band belted out a few songs to which the crowd's response was significantly better. 'Mathematicians Of Ambient Waters', their closing song, was the pick of their setlist.
The international acts were up next, with the line-up comprising of three British bands : Flayed Disciple, Bloodshot Dawn and Xerath.
Flayed Disciple tore up the stage and played some of the songs off of their debut album 'Death Hammer', 'The Westboro Massacre' among others. Even with a short setlist, the death-thrash band managed to put out an immaculate and
technically perfect rendition of Slayer's masterpiece 'Angel Of Death', which had the crowd shouting along to the song's infamous lyrics. Phil Tolfree, Flayed Disciple's drummer, was a beast on the drums, and his double bass lines left many wondering if even Mario of Gojira himself could top that.
After their set, the band came on down among the crowd and shook hands, chatted up with and even distributed free merchandise and CD's among the audience!
Bloodshot Dawn performed next, and the highly anticipated songs 'Vision'
and 'Godless' got the crowd headbanging and moshing. What was
interesting to see was that the band was highly guitar-driven, with both
guitarists using seven-stringers.
Although the audio setup did intensify the band's sound, it managed to drown out the frenzied-but-perfect guitars in layers of bass and drums. Overall, Bloodshot Dawn were fairly good, but fans suspected that they'd have sounded much better had it been for a tailor-made sound setup.
Xerath took stage, and were pretty amazing. Breakdown-laden songs got the crowd to their feet. A set slightly longer than the ones of the bands that had played earlier ensured that Xerath had enough time to interact with the crowd. All-in-all, Xerath were brilliantly simple. They gave a shout-out to the crowd on having Gojira up next, and the one-and-a-half thousand-or-so metalheads roared their approvals.
Gojira: Less than half-an-hour setup time saw Mario Duplantier, Gojira's drummer, arrive on stage first. He was soon followed by the rest of the four-piece band. Mario sat himself on his awesome and perfectly set-up drum kit, and counted out for the band to start their usual opening track, 'Explosia' from L'Enfant Sauvage, their new album. Heads instantly moved up and down, moshpits ensued and Gojira's bone-crushing metal brought to the entire audience what they had been waiting for- crystal clear and powerful metal.
Without an second's relief, Gojira belted out 'Flying Whales'. Madness was widespread, and the catchy-yet-brutal song was what had the crowd actually 'feeling it'.
Next up was Backbone; the brutal and blast-beat heavy song turning out one of the crowd-favourites.
Gojira followed up with 'Heaviest Matter Of The Universe', and boy, that was something to remember!
Mario and Joe Duplantier, drummer and vocalist/rhythm guitarist
respectively, were in perfect sync, with the mind-boggling-yet-simple
riff of the song being easily one of the defining moments of the day.
The song 'Love' from Terra Incognita, turning out to be a surprise package, continued the band's relentless onslaught of French heavy metal.
The song 'L'Enfant Sauvage', from the album of the same name was equally brilliant. It radiated energy, and the orange lights reminded one of the album's artwork.
After, the audience knew what was to come. Toxic Garbage Island. One of Gojira's masterpieces, it had the whole venue screaming along to the line "plastic bag in the sea", over and over.
The band dedicated the next song, Wisdom Comes, from The Link, to the late Pandit Ravi Shankar.
'Oroborus' was next, with the interplay between the blue and white lights something to be marvelled at.
Somewhere in between, Mario threw his drumstick over to bassist Jean-Michel, who caught it and promptly threw it back to Mario, who caught it and continued drumming away.
The star of the show was turning out to be Mario Duplantier. His overwhelming power made his drums look like they'd crumble under him. His double-bass fills and lines were pin-perfect.
Next, Gojira decided to have some fun. Mario took over the vocals and guitar duty, while Joe sat himself on the drums. Jamming for a bit, the band brought to the audience a lighter moment of the show.
They proceeded to 'The Axe' which had equally good interplay between lights, and was one of the best songs of the day. 'Vacuity' came up next, and the breathless pace of the set was restored.
The final song of the day was 'The Gift Of Guilt', before which Gojira's act of pretending to go off stage and returning seemed somewhat a fail. However, the song was intense, and was the perfect closing number for the set.
Overall, Gojira was the icing of the cake, and Mario the cherry. In spite of being a rather poorly organized event, Gojira restored
faith in everyone about metal concerts in India. It can safely be said
that Gojira alone performed one of the best sets of any band this year
in India.
Rishabh Mansur
Photo credits - Metal Wani (www.metalwani.com)
The inaugural edition of the Indian Metal Festival was held in India's metal capital, Bangalore last weekend, and turned out to be quite a remarkable one in both positive and negative aspects.
The festival, a much-hyped and highly anticipated event among Indian metalheads, delivered what mattered most : GOJIRA. The heavy metal quartet from France were the most-awaited band to hit Indian stages in the latter half of 2012, and they brought with them their trademark powerful and crushing music. Although there were snags in the organizing, the festival turned out to be adequately successful.
 |
| The Indian Metal Festival saw a turn out of one-and-a-half thousand |
Two Indian bands, namely Escher's Knot, from Bangalore, and Agnostic, from Guwahati had been scrapped even though they were on the bill, the organizers citing "time pressure" to be an excuse for their exclusion. Many remarked on how the two bands' dreams of sharing a stage with the legendary Gojira were shattered, and that the bands deserved to be treated better.
The show began in a while, with Gutslit, death grind from Mumbai, receiving a poor response from the crowd as they played a short setlist of about 3 or 4 songs. The audio wasn't great, and the guttural vocals were not very audible.
Next on stage was Eccentric Pendulum. Famous and home-grown, the Bangalore band belted out a few songs to which the crowd's response was significantly better. 'Mathematicians Of Ambient Waters', their closing song, was the pick of their setlist.
The international acts were up next, with the line-up comprising of three British bands : Flayed Disciple, Bloodshot Dawn and Xerath.
 |
| Phil Tolfree, Flayed Disciple |
After their set, the band came on down among the crowd and shook hands, chatted up with and even distributed free merchandise and CD's among the audience!
 |
| Josh McMorran, Bloodshot Dawn |
Although the audio setup did intensify the band's sound, it managed to drown out the frenzied-but-perfect guitars in layers of bass and drums. Overall, Bloodshot Dawn were fairly good, but fans suspected that they'd have sounded much better had it been for a tailor-made sound setup.
Xerath took stage, and were pretty amazing. Breakdown-laden songs got the crowd to their feet. A set slightly longer than the ones of the bands that had played earlier ensured that Xerath had enough time to interact with the crowd. All-in-all, Xerath were brilliantly simple. They gave a shout-out to the crowd on having Gojira up next, and the one-and-a-half thousand-or-so metalheads roared their approvals.
Gojira: Less than half-an-hour setup time saw Mario Duplantier, Gojira's drummer, arrive on stage first. He was soon followed by the rest of the four-piece band. Mario sat himself on his awesome and perfectly set-up drum kit, and counted out for the band to start their usual opening track, 'Explosia' from L'Enfant Sauvage, their new album. Heads instantly moved up and down, moshpits ensued and Gojira's bone-crushing metal brought to the entire audience what they had been waiting for- crystal clear and powerful metal.
Without an second's relief, Gojira belted out 'Flying Whales'. Madness was widespread, and the catchy-yet-brutal song was what had the crowd actually 'feeling it'.
Next up was Backbone; the brutal and blast-beat heavy song turning out one of the crowd-favourites.
Gojira followed up with 'Heaviest Matter Of The Universe', and boy, that was something to remember!
 |
| Joe Duplantier, Gojira |
The song 'Love' from Terra Incognita, turning out to be a surprise package, continued the band's relentless onslaught of French heavy metal.
The song 'L'Enfant Sauvage', from the album of the same name was equally brilliant. It radiated energy, and the orange lights reminded one of the album's artwork.
After, the audience knew what was to come. Toxic Garbage Island. One of Gojira's masterpieces, it had the whole venue screaming along to the line "plastic bag in the sea", over and over.
The band dedicated the next song, Wisdom Comes, from The Link, to the late Pandit Ravi Shankar.
'Oroborus' was next, with the interplay between the blue and white lights something to be marvelled at.
Somewhere in between, Mario threw his drumstick over to bassist Jean-Michel, who caught it and promptly threw it back to Mario, who caught it and continued drumming away.
 |
| Mario Duplantier, Gojira |
The star of the show was turning out to be Mario Duplantier. His overwhelming power made his drums look like they'd crumble under him. His double-bass fills and lines were pin-perfect.
Next, Gojira decided to have some fun. Mario took over the vocals and guitar duty, while Joe sat himself on the drums. Jamming for a bit, the band brought to the audience a lighter moment of the show.
They proceeded to 'The Axe' which had equally good interplay between lights, and was one of the best songs of the day. 'Vacuity' came up next, and the breathless pace of the set was restored.
The final song of the day was 'The Gift Of Guilt', before which Gojira's act of pretending to go off stage and returning seemed somewhat a fail. However, the song was intense, and was the perfect closing number for the set.
 |
| Jean-Michel, Gojira, |
Rishabh Mansur
Photo credits - Metal Wani (www.metalwani.com)
