The third edition of the three-day South Asian Band festival, starting from December 11 at the historic Purana Qila here, will see James and his band Nagarbaul of Bangladesh along with 14 other rock bands from 9 countries, including well known names like Pakistani group Strings and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy from India.
Rock lovers are particularly looking forward to the performance by Nagarbaul and James who has given music in various Bollywood movies like “Gangster” and “Life In a Metro”.
“The band festival has become popular, particularly among youngsters. Our confidence arises from an impressive line-up of bands. There is an all-female band called Afflatus which will open the festival, and the grand finale will be by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy,” said Virendra Gupta, director general of Indian Council for Cultural Relations, which is organising the festival.
“For the first time, the festival has gone beyond SAARC to include Myanmar in the event,” Gupta added.
Apart from established names of Rock ‘n’ Roll in South Asia, the festival has provided a platform for upcoming groups like Emperor (Myanmar), Fa’thu and The Early Birds (Maldives), the all-girls group Afflatus from the north-eastern Indian city of Shillong and Avial (Thiruvananthapuram, India) to rub shoulders with the big names in music industry.
The festival will also see a three-member rock band Kabul Dreams from war-torn Afghanistan. After being out of the country during the years of war and turbulence, the group has come back to Afghanistan.
The band festival will be followed by a cross cultural artistes’ camp in March 2010 to be held in Jammu city in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and a first-ever South Asian Theatre Festival with a theme relating to women issues in the wake of the International Women’s Day on March 8.
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