Asia ReView

Karan Pradhan

After rigorous competition that scythed through five cities and involved 40 of India’s most promising bands, the dust has settled, the smoke has cleared, the wheat has been separated from the chaff and the stage is set. The 23rd edition of the two-day rockstravaganza that is Independence Rock — I-Rock to its friends — has dropped its Shaquille O’Neal-sized boot upon us and featured on its competition day (Saturday), Bengaluru’s Rainbow Bridge, Aizawl’s The Scavenger Project, Delhi’s AVR, Pune’s Silver and Mumbai’s Black. If that wasn’t enough, Demonic Resurrection and Zero, in its final show, put their stamp on the evening, as well.

The I-Rock juggernaut creaked into motion at the legendary Rang Bhavan on August 15, 1985, due in no small part to its founder and E18 CEO Farhad Wadia. From its inception as a fall-back option to a cancelled Malhar rock show, the event — "show" is too small a wo-rd to encapsulate its extent — is now an all-India affair.

Since then, the institution that is I-Rock has been home to such usual suspects as Pentagram, Parikrama, Millennium, Brahma, Indus Creed (formerly Rock Machine; who performed at the very first edition) and tonnes more. In addition, it’s been a launchpad for such artistes as Shiamak Davar, Jasmine Bharucha, Suneeta Rao and Gary Lawyer. What’s more, Farhad has plans of taking the event to an international scale for its silver jubilee in 2010.

Scribe’s part-time singer and part-time growler Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy says, "It’s an incredibly difficult achievement for an independent music show to survive over two decades and I-Rock is now one of the most important shows in the country." Over the course of its lifetime, the show has seen opposition from the local government, unreliable sound technicians, the cancellation of an edition due to blasts in the city and much more.

"It’s really amazing the way the guys, who make the show happen, didn’t let any of it to discourage them and continued to battle for fans of rock music in India," continues Vishwesh.

Lead singer and founder of bands like Rock Machine and Indus Creed, Uday Benegal can’t help but agree to that. "My memory of I-Rock? Completely and absolutely chaotic, but a lot of fun in the process. Farhad and the organisers have had tussles with the police, the hospital authorities near Rang Bhavan, etc. Yet, year after year, he’s been able to bring out this festival. We played as Rock Machine for the first couple of editions of I-Rock. I wouldn’t say this festival was our launchpad, we were already touring the country when I-Rock started. But playing at I-Rock was always a fun thing for us," adds Uday.

Farhad nods in affirmation about Rock Machine’s contribution to the festival. "They played at the very first I-Rock and subsequently every year for the next eight to nine years. In fact they played all the non-competition editions of the festival," reminisces Farhad, adding, "One memory that gets me the most was the sixth edition of I-Rock. It was raining heavily that day and we were wondering if we should cancel the concert. This was not the age of the cellphone, so people incessantly called Rang Bhavan to check if the show was still on. We told everyone to come by the venue anyway. Around 5.30 pm after soundcheck, when we stepped out, we saw this long line of people from Rang Bhavan till beyond Metro, standing with their umbrellas. There were guys in shorts and chappals, slapping their wet notes at the counter to buy their tickets. That people chose to endure the rain just to have a good time, was really very very heartwarming."

One factor which is as much a part of I-Rock as clockwork covers of Rage Against The Machine songs belted out by bands and renditions of Mustang Sally by Farhad, is the Rang Bhavan versus Chitrakoot Grounds debate. After 19 years of tearing it up at Rang Bhavan, the powers-that-be decided that it was not appropriate for rock music to be performed there anymore. So, the juggernaut rolled to its next home — the wide expanses of Chitrakoot Grounds. Tariq Ali, a media professional and long time afficionado of the festival, says, "The feel of the venue certainly was strange the first time around. But look at it today and you’ll see that you need a large venue like that to accommodate the ever-growing legions of fans of this sort of music."

Keegan Pereira, vocalist for Mumbai band and I-Rock semi-finalists Aftertaste, concedes that it’s good for the bands to have larger crowds watching them. "But it’s become so much more commercial now. At Rang Bhavan, there was a ‘family feel’ to the show, in that you recognised faces in the crowd," he says, "but now, it’s just a faceless crowd full of people who are there to be seen, rather than to see the bands."

"Venues come and go,"says Tariq recalling the 1998 show (I-Rock XIII) — made famous by Pentagram’s Vishal Dadlani venting his spleen at Mumbai’s moral-police using a Rage Against The Machine song as a vehicle for bile.

Venues come and go. Fads come and go. I-Rock, however, referred to by some as the rites of passage for Indian bands, is most definitely here to stay.

(With inputs from

Lakshmi Govindrajan)