SikTh to Headline BIG69 Festival in Mumbai

Sikth: (from left) Mikee Goodman, Dan Foord, Graham Pinney, Justin Hill, Dan Weller and James Leach. Photo: Press image

Earlier this year, UK prog metal band SikTh’s guitarist Dan Weller told us how his band had ambitious plans to tour the world after reuniting late last year. Weller said SikTh would “love to play to people who haven’t seen us before or lived too far.” One of the forerunners of the modern prog metal scene and inspirations to Indian hardcore bands such as Scribe and Reverrse Polarity, SikTh will make their India debut at the first edition of the BIG69 metal festival in Mumbai in January next year.

Best known for combining elements such as dramatized vocals, brutal, technical riff work and mind-boggling drumming on their two albums The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out Wait for Something Wild [2003] and 2006’s Death of a Dead Day, SikTh had called it quits in 2008, after vocalists Mikee Goodman and Justin Hill left a year earlier. Says Goodman about the split, “I just needed to get out of the band. I didn’t want to be in the band any more. I felt I just wanted to live a different existence.” But the vocalist agrees that the time off gave them the opportunity to explore other fields ”“ while guitarist Dan Weller is now a sought-after producer amongst UK metal bands, Goodman is part of several other projects, including metal bands Outpatients and Primal Rock Rebellion, a studio-only side project with heavy metal legends Iron Maiden’s guitarist Adrian Smith. The band members eventually decided to reunite in late 2013, with an announcement that they would perform at UK’s Download Festival in mid-2014. Says Goodman, “After a while, you grow a bit older and think, maybe we can make this work. We can try figure out a way to be happy and be on the road together.”

Fresh from their 13-city UK tour in November, Goodman says their India show may be the last for another six months until the summer festival season resumes. SikTh recently performed at Kathmandu’s Silence Festival in October, but Goodman says they don’t know what to expect from India. Adds the vocalist, “I don’t think anyone in the band has been to India, so it’s obviously very different and exciting for us. We went to Kathmandu and we didn’t know what to expect, and we don’t know what to expect from India either.”

The band joins UK rap metallers Hacktivist and Italian tech-death metal band Fleshgod Apocalypse as part of the international acts confirmed to perform at BIG69, with one more headliner band yet to be announced. Indian metal bands such as extreme metal band Demonic Resurrection, tech/groove metal band Undying Inc, thrash/groove metal band Zygnema, old school metallers Kryptos, death grind band Gutslit and more are also slated to perform at Mumbai’s Richardson and Cruddas between January 17th and 18th, 2015.

BIG69 takes place between January 17th and 18th at Richardson and Cruddas, Mumbai. Tickets: Rs 1,500 [student season pass], Rs 2,500 [early bird season pass] and Rs 4,000 [regular season pass]. Buy tickets here. More details here.