MUMBAI: Popular music venues like Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) and blueFROG are getting ready to celebrate World Music Day along with rest of the world. Both venues are celebrating the day by offer a variety of music genres, allowing music lovers to pick venues based on their music preference. HRC will remain true to its name by playing rock music, programmed by Artist Aloud. ‘Artist Aloud Vh1 World Music Day’ will take place at each of its five venues- Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. For those who prefer Blues music, BlueFROG will pay tribute to late legendary BB King on 21 June in Mumbai.

On World Music Day, HRC will host bands like Parikrama in Delhi, Swarathama in Bengaluru, Papon And The East India Company in Mumbai, Indiva in Pune and Avial in Hyderabad. Artist Aloud is providing new talent the opportunity to open for ‘Artist Aloud VH1 World Music Day’ at various HRC venues. Five budding artistes/bands will be selected for the five venues. Artist Aloud had asked talents to upload their demos and live performance videos to the mobile application #IMALOUD. Artist Aloud VP Soumini Sridhara Paul said, “If the IP is strong then everyone joins you to make it work. Vh1 and HRC backed our plan, followed by Guvera, Red FM, Urzza and Harley Davidson who came as partners. There were some cost-cuts that we faced in this event but doing the event was the right thing. We want to do things that go beyond what we do on a regular basis. This year we have planned to make Artist Aloud huge and this IP was part of that effort.” In Mumbai, Hard Rock Cafe is charging a cover of Rs 500 and VIP passes for Rs 2000.

blueFROG, which unveils its Bengaluru venue on Friday, will have a performance by Kutle Khan at the new venue. In Pune, there DJ Deep and DJ Omi will entertain the froggies on 21 June; however, neither venue is promoting the gigs as special programming for World Music day. In Mumbai, Blackstrat Blues featuring Tejas, Loy Mendonsa and Kush Upadhyay will pay tribute to BB King, in a show that has been curated by Mahindra Blues on World Music Day. Singer/songwriter Tejas Menon said, “BB King is a legend and getting an opportunity to perform his tracks on World Music Day as a tribute to him is a huge opportunity given to me by Warren Mendonsa and the organisers of Mahindra Blues.” He added, “There are very few venues which allow live music on such a scale. Full respect to venues like blueFROG which make this happen.” The entry fee for the gig is Rs 300. 

Yet another venue which will have a tribute gig –‘Platinum - The Live ABBA Tribute Show’ is NCPA. However, the two-day gig at NCPA is not being promoted as a ‘World Music Day’ event. At NCPA, music fans can enjoy Swedish pop music by buying tickets priced between Rs 2280 and Rs 8500. NCPA programming (Indian Music) head research scientist Dr. Suvarnalata Rao said, “NCPA is actively engaged in promoting all kinds of music traditions; from classical, semi-classical, light and popular, to devotional, folk and contemporary. NCPA thus recognises and respects myriad artistic expressions without any boundaries.” Rao added, “Music has the power to touch all living beings and hence regarded as a universal language that can transcend all the man-made barriers of region, religion, cast, creed and language. World Music Day celebrates the aspect of universality of music.”