Akhil Sood
But this kind of stuff, too ‘Western’ for the majority of India’s population, was always restricted to the fringes. Bollywood was—and remains—at the very top of the pyramid, with its chokehold on the pop culture imagination of the country. Then came the mellifluous folk and classical musicians that India has been blessed with. And then, far away in the distance, was everything else—barely a speck on the radar. A smattering of ambitious young individuals committed to the spirit of alternative music and the community it forged kept things going. Small-time record labels popped up and bands pumped in their own money in a futile race against the system, pub owners, festival organisers, gig promoters and management agencies. It was a tiny subculture that existed in parallel to the mainstream. The crowds consisted, mostly, of weirdos, rebels, misfits, oddballs and nonconformists who gravitated to these spaces and each other, seeking both identity and community.
By the mid-2000s, with the earnest advent of the internet in India, the world grew so much smaller. Music became, thanks to the grey-area rise of piracy, accessible to all kinds of audiences. This was when heavy metal icons Iron Maiden came to India for the first time. It was a landmark moment—thousands of obsessive fans from across the country flew to Bengaluru for this gig. More festivals and battle-of-the-bands competitions began to crop up as venues became more open to the idea of live music as entertainment. In the years to come, we got dedicated music venues: the now-shuttered Blue Frog in Mumbai became a kind of incubator for indie music. With impeccable acoustics, top-notch equipment and a commitment to promoting the form—all things previously alien to the scene—Blue Frog became one of those stages that bands young and old aspired to get on to. Bollywood, too, took notice. By 2008, we had Rock On!!, a film based on the story of four musician friends, that gave us, perhaps for the first time, rock anthems in Hindi. Things were looking up.
Music festivals, for one, became more organised. Chief among them was NH7 Weekender, which began in Pune but soon became a national multi-stage performing arts festival that attracted major global figures. Sunburn, held on a beach in Goa each year, would bring down some of the biggest commercial EDM names and thousands of travellers. Writing music became cheaper as artists could bypass expensive studios and simply produce music on their laptops. Social media, too, allowed for a kind of democratisation of the space as artists could reach listeners directly. By the 2010s, we even began to get festivals dedicated to different genres like the Mahindra Blues Festival and Harley Rock Riders.