MUMBAI: Over the last 13 years, The Great Indian Rock Festival has provided a platform for bands like Parikrama, Orange Street and Indian Ocean and helped them get noticed   However, this year the festival went national with gigs lined up across seven major cities, namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Shillong. GIR also got three international metal acts to perform in the festival 

Spread over two days, the festival kickstarted in Mumbai last weekend.

DAY ONE - (October 31st, 2008) - Barefaced Liar (Delhi), Zodiac (Mumbai), Scribe (Mumbai), Sahg (Norway) Freak Kitchen (Sweden).

DAY TWO - (November 1, 2008) - Something Relevant (Mumbai), Rainbow Bridge (Chennai), Bhayanak Maut (Mumbai), Them Clones (Delhi) Satyricon (Norway)

With Seagram as their main sponsors, the event has certainly got bigger and better. However, as far as the turnout goes, day one saw fewer crowds compared to day two.
One of the reasons for the low turnout could be the concert date clashing with 'Rock On for Humanity Concert'  

Most of the Mumbai crowd is known to prefer 'Metal' to 'Rock' and this was clearly seen over the two days. Those who got the crowd moshing were the most appreciated and those playing soft music were conveniently booed. This was the first time that three international metal bands Sahg (Norway), Freak Kitchen (Sweden) and Satyricon (Norway) performed at the GIR.

Groups like Sahg and the Freak Kitchen are known to be inspired by Indian music, and many others from the international metal scene have already adapted to Indian classical scales and Carnatic music – a testimony to the fact that Freak Kitchen has an Indian violinist Radhakrishna on board playing the double violin  

Mumbai has, in the past, seen mainly mainstream international music acts like Shakira, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, Mark Knopfler, Joe Satriani, Iron Maiden and Jethro Tull to name a few. However, this is the start of a new trend where bands from the international underground metal scene are showing interest to perform in India. All this can be credited to the dedicated followers of metal music lovers in the city.

The three international metal bands are scheduled to perform in all the seven major cities till 15 November 2008.