Fireflies Festival of Music 2010
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Last weekend I went to the Fireflies festival of Music. Fireflies festival was relatively less known underground indie festival on the outskirts of Bangalore but has become popular over the years. This years edition had several good bands crossing various genres and covering everything from traditional and experimental sounds of Kerala to sufi inspired hymns to Lounge Piranha’s alternative grunge and Low Rhyderz Reggae and Hiphop.
I reached a little late around 7pm and stayed through the night through till the last two acts. All the acts were very good and the variety was staggering. The only downside was the time taken to setup the stage and occasional problems with the sound setup.
Esperanto Soul Fusion
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With Geeta Navale on the Veena, the esperanto project had some funky psychedelic sounds combined with Carnatic music.
HFT Jazz
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Shabnam Virmani rendtion of “Kabir ke dohe”
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Shabnam Virmani – Filmmaker-turned-singer regaled the audience with her soulful rendition of couplets of Kabir. She explained the meaning of the couplets before singing them. Her performance got a fantastic response from the audience.
Hulivesa
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Definitely the highlight if the evening was Huilvesa – a traditional dance from coastal Karnataka. Hulivesa (Loose Tulu translation “In the form of a tiger”) is performed by young males typically aged between 5 years to 10 years are painted with yellow and black stripes like tiger adorning tiger masks and other props. The kids dance to a familiar drumbeat and perform various acts such as eating a coconut and doing acrobatic acts.
Lounge Piranha
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Lounge Piranha are a post-rock alternative grunge band. They performed several songs from their released (and upcoming) albums. They played some good guitar riffs. The lead singer had a wry sense of humour and kept making jibes at “world music”.
Qawwali – Bharat Sargam and group
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The Qawwali troupe got the audience on their feet by playing some popular songs such as “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom” and “Mast Kalandar”. There was almost a mini riot when the audience wanted to play one more song but the organisers wouldn’t relent and let them play the request.
Vayali – Traditional Kerala songs and experimental bamboo orchestra
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Vayali started with an experimental bamboo orchestra in which all the instruments (mainly percussion) were made of Bamboo. They ended their performance with traditional Kerala songs.
Low Rhyderz
Low Rhyderz is a Hip-Hop/Reggae band. Probably the least interesting on all the performances, they were not able to engage the audiences like the other artistes. They were high on style but disappointingly low on entertainment.