NH7 Weekender 2011 Diary

Monica Dogra of Shaa'ir + Func.

In a cartoon included in the guidebook to the Bacardi NH7 Weekender festival, one-line descriptions accompany stick figures representing various types of attendees. At the end of three days of gig hopping, we knew exactly whom we identified with in the cartoon—the two stick figures referred to as “NH7 2010 purists who say, ‘The Weekender was better in my day’.” The two stick figures of the hundred shown in the cartoon are obviously a minority because Weekender 2011 was indisputably bigger, in terms of both production and attendance, than its previous edition.

Over 25,000 people attended the three-day event in Pune this past weekend, as compared to 10,000 attendees last year. We managed to convince a number of first-timers to come along for at least one day, including many who barely go to gigs and the majority of whom had never been to a music festival before. The consensus: they’ll be back next year, for all three days.

As for us, we returned to Mumbai on a high, similar to the one we experienced last year but different in some way as well. As a group of us who were there last year repeatedly said, the chilled-out, homely feel of the festival had been replaced by a crowded, slightly chaotic ambience that is the natural outcome of such a large increase in attendance numbers. We had to wait longer to get our food and booze; we had to make sure we watched the penultimate act if we wanted to be up front for the headliner; in short, we had to act like we would at any festival abroad. The Weekender was not just ours anymore; it was everyone’s. Indian indie, it seemed, had finally arrived.

Nostalgia makes you remember everything as being perfect at the time. So if we cribbed—and it was us “old-timers” doing the cribbing as opposed to the awe-struck newbies—it was because things weren’t the way they used to be (even if used-to-be was just a year ago). Why didn’t they have gaddas at The Dewarists Stage? (Answer: They had them initially but it made sense to remove them in order to accommodate more people). Why was there no bar at the after-party venue? (Answer: It would have required another set of licences, which in a city with a 11.30pm deadline would have been, needless to say, a logistical nightmare. Besides, there was a bar just outside.)

Our report last year included a list of things we would like to see at Weekender 2011 and we were very pleased to find that there was much more and better food this time around. There were stalls from such popular Mumbai eateries as Gostana and Yogurtbay, as well as a few from Pune, including roll and shawarma specialists Marrakesh, which proved to the busiest, and best, of them all. There were plenty of shopping stalls as well, and though they mainly comprised such usual flea-market suspects as No Nasties and The Root, they added to the Goa-in-Pune aura of things.

There was also a marginal increase in the amount of band merchandise, though still nowhere as much as we’d like to see. Booking agency Krunk was the only one to bother setting up an individual stall while a handful of bands sold their wares through the festival merchandise stall (there was an “artists merchandise” stall that we don’t recall ever being opened). Bangalore’s Swarathma, arguably one of India’s most innovative indie acts, got a handcart from which to sell their colourful Gandhi topis and CDs. Like last year, your only way of finding out about schedule changes—like that of the secret set by Zero—was via Twitter.

While initially it seemed that there were fewer international acts than in 2010, there were actually more foreign artists this year. But the organisers publicised the appearances of only two of them, Basement Jaxx’s Felix Buxton (who played a DJ set) and Imogen Heap. Buxton headlined the first day, and while it was a good way to start, we felt he only got into the groove towards the last 20 minutes of his set; on the other hand, every minute of Heap’s hour-long performance was mesmerising. The under-hyped international acts included Scottish folk-rock singer-songwriter King Creosote, whose short Sunday afternoon performance was one of our personal highlights, and British rapper Riz MC who drew extreme reviews (people either loved or hated him).

There was also BBC DJs Bobby Friction and Nihal, whose South Asian-influenced beats helped keep revellers at the Eristoff Wolves Den bouncing through the day. As fest attendees who prefer folk-fusion or rock over electronica, we were surprised to find that this stage had the best vibe—the sound and light production were top-notch, the giant screens helped you see better, and there was a general sense of bonhomie. It’s noteworthy that many girls mentioned that the Pune crowd was extremely well behaved.

However, there were still a few logistical lessons for the organisers to learn. While we complained about the distance of the Black Rock Arena from the rest of the stages, it turned out that artists were heard commenting that all the stages were so close together that they had to strain to hear themselves over the music wafting in.

Then again, there was every effort to make things easier for the audience, from carpools to shuttle buses and directions to the venue (signs all the way from Koregaon Park with messages that seemed to voice all our thoughts, from “YAYYYY!” to “Wheeee!” to “Are We There Yet?”). There was a near compulsive attention to detail, be it the freebies given out at stages (shaggy black wigs for the Black Rock Arena, neon blue Afros for the Eristoff Wolves Den) to a new special stage for more experimental forms of music, called the Pepsi Dub Station.

From the performances we caught by homegrown acts, there were many standouts (Advaita, SkyHarbor, Shaa’ir + Func, and our personal find of the fest: the protest songs of one-man-act Imphal Talkies) and we observed how artists approach festival audiences differently. Both Raghu Dixit and Swarathma played all-new sets, which worked very well for long-standing fans but may not have pleased first-timers. We think Indian Ocean got it right when, with 18 minutes of their set left, they said they were going to play two of their biggest hits, “Ma Rewa” and “Kandisa”. The NH7 All-Stars performance curated by Karsh Kale and featuring performances by almost all the frontmen of the acts that performed was a brilliant idea.

But as much as we enjoyed seeing our favourite acts giving their own twists to Blur (“Song 2”) and The Smiths (it was probably the first time “Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” was heard performed to the accompaniment of the sitar and Hindi lyrics before leading into, of all things, a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Mother”), we’re waiting for the day that Indian indie artists begin covering each other. We want to see Zero cover Pentagram, Advaita jam with Indian Ocean, and Scribe interpreting Sky Rabbit. Wishful thinking? If anyone can make it happen, it’s NH7.