MUMBAI: India’s music scene has multiple genres co-existing and finding an audience. Be it the popular Bollywood, or Indian classical or indie music or the bands. The band culture started flourishing from late 80s and though India couldn’t have their own Beatles, they had some really very popular bands which made youngsters swoon to their tunes. While this culture was in full bloom in the 90s and gave the nation some of the most popular bands during this time, the trend of bands still continues. Let’s have a look how these bands have done in 2017.
Indian Ocean - A New Delhi based Indian rock band, with a style that can be classified as folk and fusion music. They are known for their fusion rock genre in India. Their albums like Kandisa, Jhini, Black Friday are quite famous and also for their songs Bandeh, Tandanu and Ma Rewa.
Band members - Nikhil Rao, Amit Kilam, Rahul Ram, Himanshu Joshi, Sushmit Sen, Tuheen Chakraborty
Performances of the band this 2017 - The band performed at Beats and Pints Fest, Pushkar Fair 2017, Roobaroo.
Indian Ocean performed live at Indore during NH7 weekender Bacardi Event. Check out the video-
Parikrama - A rock and roll band from New Delhi India, Parikrama, was all in news when Saif Ali Khan performed with them and the band has managed to live up to the name ever since. What's special about their recordings is that most of them are live performances, which makes them energetic and has a different sound therefore. They are known as India’s oldest, yet first tech savvy band. With over millions of fans across the planet this band maintains its stature till date.
Band performances 2017 - India Gate North East Calling Festival, Spiritz Mirchi Live Big Top Fest featuring Parikrama and other bands. While this band has performed live at many concerts.
Band Members include - Nitin Malik, Aneesh Arora (Ex Lead Guitarist), Saurabh Choudhary Subir Malik Gaurav Balani, Srijan Mahajan, Shambu Nath, Imran Khan
Parikrama performed twice at Rongali Festival –
Euphoria: Euphoria, put together by their lead singer Palash Sen, is known as the pioneer of Indian pop music. Their songs have always ruled the charts be it Vidya Balan starrer Mayeri or even their recent hits. Since its inception, the band is known for the right balance of melody and percussion.
Band performances 2017 – The band performed at ADHM at Delhi, Antaragini (Annual cultural festival of IIT Kanpur), Fiddle Craft Live. The band also performed in Pune. It also performs live at cafes like Hard Rock.
Euphoria at Upvan, Thane –
Indus Creed - A rock band based in Mumbai. This was the earliest band in India to tour the country, performing at college and independently promoted rock festivals.
Band performances this 2017 - Pretty Child, Rock N Roll Renegade, Indus Creed Live at Bonobo, Phenomenon.
Band members - Uday Benegal, Mahesh Tinaikar, Zubin Balaporia, Krishna Jhaveri, Jai Row Kavi.
Ankur and the Ghalat Family - Ankur and the Ghalat Family performs easy acoustic rock-pop. They came up with songs like Wagairah Wagairah, Yaaron, Dil Haare.
Performances in 2017 - Bacardi NH7 Weekender Pune 2017, Ding Dong Live at High Holi Festival Pune), Live performances at Humming Tree, Esplanade.
Band members - Sidd Coutto, Johan Pais, Gaurav Gupta, Vivaan Kapoor and Ankur Tewari.
Watch their recent performance here -
Agnee – An Indian rock band based in Pune, Agnee is a unique confluence of individual styles of composing and performing its classic rock, pop and Indian influences and one of their singers Mohan with his Carnatic and Hindustani classical influences. They are famous for their songs like Sadho Re, Shaam Tanha.
Band performances in 2017 - Live at Peck Fest annual cultural festival of Pec University of Technology Chandigarh. Live performances at Polo Lounge (New Delhi).
Band Members - Varun Venkit, Shelle, Rushad Mistry, Meera, Shenoy, Nitin Joshi, Micheal Pereira, Jai Row Ravi, Ajay Parekh, Abhinav Singh, Koco, Kinshuk Vaidya, Mitit Adhikari.
Pentagram - Pentagram is regarded as one of the pioneers of original Indian independent music. While the group started off as a rock/alt.rock band, they also explored towards electronica and industrial sounds.
Performances in 2017 - Live at Arena, Vienna, Live at Broadberry Rock Festival, NH7 Weekender 2017 Pune, Hard Rock Cafe, Flyo Forever Istanbul Live Acoustic Performance.
Band Members - Vishal, Shiraz, Randolph, Makarand Mane (Papal)
Pentagram Live at NH7 Weekender Pune 2017-
The Local Train – An Indian Rock Band from Delhi. The band known for its active role in cultural festivals in Indian colleges, recorded its first music video Aaoge Tum Kabhi and created a sensation on social networking sites and received wide appreciation. Their work has bee appreciated by the sensational Raghu Dixit too.
Performances in 2017 - NH7 Weekender Pune, IIM-A Chaos 2017, Choo Lo Spree BITS Goa, HRC Hyderabad, Mizaz Live (Vaaqif) where they released their new album.
Band Members - Raman Negi, Paras Thakur, Ramit Mehra, Sahil Sarin.
Raghu Dixit Project - Raghu Dixit, and The Raghu Dixit Project, are best known for taking ancient Kannada poetry, and presenting it around the world with a contemporary, global sound. In India, The Raghu Dixit Project performs at music festivals, music venues, corporate shows, college festivals and private events.
Band Members - Raghu Dixit, Gaurav Vaz, Joe Jacob, Narayan Sharma, Sanjay Kumar.
Band performance 2017 - Live performance at Sula Fest, Ramaiah University Bangalore, Khelgaon Ranchi, Jaipur LIT Fest.
Here’s the video of the Bands performance –
Sanam Band – A pop rock band based in Mumbai. The band is amongst India's top ten independent YouTube channels in the country. Its music is known to bring out messages of love, peace and a feeling of togetherness.
Band Performance 2017 - International performances at Mauritius, Netherlands and Holland. Also, they have their re-created versions of Neele Neele Ambar Par and Dil Diya Gallan and performances at Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad.
Band members - Sanam Puri, Samar Puri, Keshav Dhanraj, Venky S.