B69 by BAJAAO

A Revolution Of Live Culture in Mumbai's Indie Scene, A Review of "Metal Bajaao" - By Ashwin Sharma

Written by Administrator

Mumbai has a lot of talent in rock / metal, the only sad part being the lack of venues for the artists to show their talent. There was a time when Razzberry Rhinoceros (Razz) in Juhu used to have a show every Thursday of the week. A band just had to go and book the venue beforehand and promote the event accordingly with the other bands playing the show by handing out flyers etc at colleges or other events happening around. What the artists lacked at that time was a proper place to jam and compose music.  Bajaao was an initiative started for retail of musical instruments and Ashutosh the owner who has always worked on the pain area of the scene, came up with the idea of starting N.O.C. which became a cult place for bands jamming out and became the only place where bands could jam up regularly day or night without any issues. Then came the demise of Razz, with which ended a whole era of amazing shows, moments and worst of all... amazing bands.

With mostly only college gigs happening in Mumbai with substandard sound, the scene was starting to lose its rhythm. That’s when once again Bajaao came up with the revolutionary idea to open a venue with a kickass stage and sound so that the crowd gets their share of music every week, just like the old days! B69 is very near to the Andheri station and is accessible for many people and to top it all off the sound equipment inside the venue is of international quality.

So now the question arises, how to launch such a place? The answer to that question was brutally provided by the management organizing 6 shows in the very first month of August

The first show had to be the biggest one as it was the launch of the venue, and notably it had Bhayanak Maut, Demonic Resurrection and Scribe playing. When I reached the venue early during the sound check, I was blown by the sound!! Scribe was on stage and I could see happy faces on stage as everyone seemed satisfied with their sound. Bhayanak Maut had decided to start the show, their second vocalist Sunny wasn’t in town and had to skip the show cause of his exams. They started out to a crowd of 50 people and more slowly trickling in cause of the huge line. By the end of the second song there were at least 250 to 300 people and more coming in, that was a cause for worry cause the venue has a capacity of maximum 350 people after which it would be difficult to accommodate more in the venue.

And that’s exactly what happened. Mumbai crowd showed up in hordes for the support of the show, the venue and the whole new revolution in live culture. At least a crowd of 450 and above was present for the event of which only 350 got entry many had to be asked to leave or check back later cause the venue couldn’t accommodate them!! The entire venue was packed with people who all were grooving to the music being played out for them. I personally missed Sunny's vocals in their performance as the band after evolving to this extent didn’t seem to sound perfect without him in that show. A great gig nonetheless they band played one new song called "Dear <name>" along with the entire track list from the hit 2009 album ‘Untitled’.

Up next was Demonic Resurrection who was playing the entire set list that they had planned to play at their upcoming international gig at the Brutal Assault Festival. The band was sounding exceptionally tight that day, clearly showing how much practice had been put through for the international event.

Scribe was the last band for the night with Vishwesh practically rewriting the lyrics of all the songs impromptu on stage. The huge and gruesome mosh pit that had started right from the start of the show kept getting wilder till the end. By the end everyone also realized the major turn off at the venue, the ventilation and the air conditioning were not able to cope with the crowd and failed miserably. Every single person was bathed in sweat and almost suffocating with the heat generated by 350 screaming metalheads. The floor was slowly getting soiled with the sweat. However, all things considered this gig marked a very promising kickstart for the venue with an exceptional turnout and equally exceptional performances by each band.

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