Norah Jones To Perform In Mumbai In March 2013

Norah Jones. © Frank W. Ockenfels 3.

The biggest announcement made by Bacardi NH7 Weekender organisers Only Much Louder at their celebratory gig, The Loudest Day, this past Saturday was not a long-rumoured Coldplay tour of India but the launch of a new women-focused festival called A Summer’s Day, the inaugural edition of which is scheduled for Sunday March 3, 2013 and will be headlined by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones.

It was just one of many announcements made by the indie music conglomerate’s founder Vijay Nair at an event that at times resembled an Apple conference (Nair joked that he couldn’t find a turtleneck so had to settle for his T-shirt from erstwhile Indian indie music website Gigpad). Apart from talking about a nifty new festival app and the launch of a new creative talent incubating platform called The Coalition, Nair also revealed additions to the Pune line-up of Weekender this year. They include percussionist Trilok Gurtu; the Bollywood composer-singer duo of Shantanu Moitra and Swanand Kirkire; audio-visual collective BLOT!; Australian indie rock band Jinja Safari; the Manganiyar Seduction (made up of Rajasthani folk musicians) and a special performance by a new supergroup called The Divine Metal Project, comprising members of Mumbai and Pune’s most popular metal bands.

There will also be special sets curated by such Weekender mainstays as Indian Ocean’s Amit Kilam; Midival Punditz’s Gaurav Raina; Karsh Kale; Swarathma; and Dualist Inquiry. The first list of performers at the Bangalore edition was also announced, among them US metal band Periphery, English singer-songwriter Fink, British hip hop collective Foreign Beggars, and Austrian beatboxing group Bauchklang. Perhaps the best news of the night (one that was perhaps meant to appease those upset that Megadeth won’t be playing Pune) was that anybody who buys a ticket for the Pune leg gets a free ticket for the Delhi or Bangalore edition.