STILL ROCKIN'

Rock music in India is alive but not really kicking. Just depending on gigs for a living is out of the question, say practitioners

- Bhagavathi Sampath K J

Hey hey, my my / Rock and roll can never die...,” sang Canadian American artiste Neil Young many years back. These words ring true in today’s India too. With a twist of course.

Rock music, a staple of campus and club scenes, has slowly lost out to more contemporary genres. But as Young goes on to sing, “There’s more to the picture than meets the eye.” The notion that rock music is dead in India is a misconception. It may not be kicking and headbanging, but it is not dead and buried either.

"Independence Rock [a two-day music festival in Mumbai] has been a huge success, fuelled by people’s nostalgia. It's celebrating its 30th anniversary on November 16–17, and it is sold out. The success of I-Rock led to Bandland [a rock festival in Bengaluru], and now, because of both, more festivals are emerging," says Subir Malik, founder and organist of Parikrama, one of India’s biggest rock acts.

According to him, even with techno and electronic dance music ruling the airwaves, Bandland last year still managed to draw nearly 10,000 fans with international bands such as Deep Purple and Goo Goo Dolls headlining the shows.

The iconic I-Rock festival made a comeback in 2022 after a nine-year hiatus, with founder Farhad Wadia partnering with Hyperlink Brand Solutions as co-organiser and the Mahindra Group as the title sponsor. I-Rock was launched in 1986 and is renowned as the longest-running and most popular rock festival in the country.

“It is fair to say that there has been more rock music at festivals. There are not necessarily more festivals dedicated to rock, but the genre is inching back to claim more space on multigenre festival lineups,” says Anurag Tagat, a music journalist.

Hitting a Sour Note