Live
Kill ‘Em All: Weird Hairdos, Firebreathers and More
Mumbai’s most popular rock destination Razzberry Rhinoceros (Juhu) played host to ‘Kill ‘Em All’ — a show that most rock fans in Bombay were looking forward to, but no one anticipated it to turn out quite the way it did. The bands scheduled to perform on the night included Egglesslove Cake, Amidst The Chaos, Skincold, Split and Bitchslap (who didn’t turn up), in that order.
The show started two hours late, with Egglesslove Cake playing some Tool covers (”Schism”, “Parabola”, Sober”). Now, when I say Tool covers, you probably think that they worked their magic on the crowd, right? Wrong. All I can say is that maybe their drummer (the only good thing about the band) helped the audience tolerate their music. As if the Tool songs weren’t enough they played one of their own songs, called “Frenzy”, which drove the audience a little insane — and not in a good way.
Next up, Amidst The Chaos stepped up and definitely helped excite the now restless crowd. Their set list included songs by Unearth (”Great Dividers”), Dark New Day (”Brother”) and All That Remains (”This Calling”), but it was their originals “Fight Night” and “Five Minus One” that were most appreciated by the crowd. The heavy music led to an extreme atmosphere, populated by chants from the crowd that included everyone from punk rockers with weird hairdos to tattooed hardcore metalheads, and — how could anyone forget — the posers.
Just when everyone was geared up for some more metal, the now famous fire breather guy decided to do his thing, and won himself a lot of cheers. This went on till Livewire ‘06 runners-up Skincold stormed the stage with a set list dominated by their own songs (”Wake Up”, “Serial Killer”, “This Is My Trip”, “Sanity Barred”, “Take Me Away”, “Hate Pit”). The mosh pit was on during Skincold’s set, and all the excitement resulted in a few broken beer bottles. Skincold’s originals weren’t enough for the cover-hungry crowd, who kept yelling for “Bodies” (Drowning Pool) and “Engine No. 9″ (Deftones) — and the band didn’t disappoint as they ended their show with the latter. I had goose bumps throughout Skincold’s set — everything about their performance was near-perfect, right from Sohail’s roars to Akshay’s incredibly awesome guitar tone to the tight rhythm section comprising of drummer Anand and bassist Rayan.
After Skincold’s set, the crowd was charged up and Split came on stage to the disadvantage of having to play after Skincold. What didn’t make things any better for them was the amount of time they took to set up their sound, draining the energy out of everyone in the room. However, guitarists Mel and Aviv did their best to keep the crowd entertained during the sound check. After a lot of fuss about the sound of the kick drum, they finally started their set with a mediocre cover of “Alive” (Pearl Jam). To their credit, the band did justice to “Wicked Garden” (Stone Temple Pilots) and “Just (You Do It To Yourself)” (Radiohead). The crowd, who had almost lost all interest in proceedings due to the super-long sound check finally got into the mood during the Radiohead cover. They started getting into it some more with requests for covers, and Split obliged with “With Or Without You” (U2) and “Bulls On Parade” (Rage Against The Machine), which brought the show to an end.
All said and done, the enthralling fire breather act, the great crowd, the mosh pits and lots of good music ensured that ‘Kill ‘Em All’ was worth going to. For just a 100 rupees, that’s a pretty good deal.
Who had the weird hairdo Nithya?
weird hairdo??? was it me?????? ;-)
From reading the review it seemed the crowd wanted a lot of covers. Indian bands need to make good originals and thecrowd needs to encourage bands with originals. Otherwise the Indian Rock scene will never take off.