Colossal Figures, Noiseware, Aswekeepsearching to Play at The Double Bill in Delhi

Delhi prog metallers Colossal Figures live at the Rolling Stone Metal Awards in 2015. Photo: Himanshu Rohilla

The capital will soon be the testing ground for a new gig series that wants to make metal mingle with indie. The Double Bill, which takes place on June 24th and June 26th at Antisocial in New Delhi, will bring together six bands across two days. The gig series’ inaugural edition will host Pune experimental metallers Noiseware, post-rock bands Ioish and Aswekeepsearching, math rock/metallers Kraken and alt/prog band October. It will also mark the return of prog metal band Colossal Figures after nearly a year.

Hosted by Ahmedabad-based event/booking firm BlueTree’s Uddipan Sarmah [who also fronts Aswekeepsearching], The Double Bill is a follow-up of sorts to the 2Stroke Tour series that started out last year. While the aim behind 2Stroke was to create a touring culture among bands, Sarmah says the focus of the Double Bill is to give metal bands the same footing as non-metal bands in different cities. He adds, “If I’m doing an indie gig, I know I’d get about 200 people, so why not give them a chance to check out metal? We want to merge the crowds.” Although there’s a day’s gap between the shows due to logistical reasons, a ticket for the two-day gig will sell at Rs 500. Social’s outgoing culture manager Meg D’Souza explains the economics, “It’s not a big amount [of revenue from gigs] that everyone walks away with, but it’s honestly what needs to be done to keep the scene alive. We’ve been running as a venue for nearly two years now. If we break even, we’re pretty much satisfied.” 

 The lineup is equally convincing, featuring Colossal Figures’ return to the stage nearly a year after they put the band on hold, following vocalist Govind Marodia’s death in July last year. Says guitarist Karan Mehta, “We hadn’t jammed for more than a year, but people are still following us, which is amazing.” The band is currently auditioning vocalists and are yet to finalize on a new singer, but Mehta promises they will perform songs off their 2014 debut full-length album Clockwork Dilation as well as the next set of songs they began working on, including a new track called “Co-exist.”

The Double Bill also includes Noiseware returning to perform their first show in Delhi since 2013. Sarmah notes that since Aswekeepsearching’s bassist Bob Alex and drummer Gautam Deb, along with live engineer Adhiraj Singh [guitars] are all part of Noiseware, he called on the rest of the band to perform at the gig as well. Singh says, “This has to be the most economically fulfilling gig. It could be a model. I’m just putting that out there.”

Poster for The Double Bill by Denver Fernandes. Click to enlarge

The Double Bill takes place at Antisocial, New Delhi on:

June 24th ”“ Ioish, October, Aswekeepsearching

June 26th ”“ Colossal Figures, Noiseware, Kraken

Event details here.