We Need to Address India’s Abysmal Lack of Live Venues

Let’s get to the point of this article right at the outset. Here’s one of the things that really stunts the growth of Indian independent music – a woeful lack of venues for live gigs. You can literally count them on your fingers, no matter which city you are living in. There are Mumbaikars who still mourn the demise of Blue Frog, though the resurrection of AntiSocial has somewhat eased the pain. Delhiites oscillate like a ping-pong ball between The Piano Man Jazz Club and Depot48. People in Bengaluru have everyone’s sympathy because of their Cinderella-hour curfew restrictions. And as for Kolkata, let’s not even get there. Let’s just say that the place is like a village with dried-up wells when it comes to live-music venues.

That last sentence might sound harsh but sadly, it’s true, though one of Kolkata’s dormant places – Princeton Club – flickered back to life when ambient/prog-rock band aswekeepsearching played a gig there recently. The last time that musicians had performed at the spot was in 2018. But for a decade prior to that, it had served as an alternative to the hegemony of Someplace Else, a venue in central Kolkata that’s been a shining light for live bands since 1997, but is now a shadow of its former self. Princeton Club – with its gig series called Jamsteady held weekly on Fridays – had offered music junkies in the city’s southern part a chance to get their fix. But then the curtains dropped four years ago, and the stage had been engulfed in darkness ever since.

So, there was an understandable air of excitement tinged with nostalgia when the doors opened for aswekeepsearching’s concert. Familiar faces (everyone in Kolkata seems to know or at least know of everyone else) caught up with each other at the outdoor smoking area before the music began, and at the bar inside, where the drinks are still as unbelievably cheap as they used to be. Gradually, as the band started to take the stage, a small army of die-hard fans congregated right up at the front, most wearing black T-shirts and jeans, and some carrying backpacks that indicated that they hadn’t gone back home from college yet. They are the flag-bearers of successive generations of Kolkata youngsters who are devoted to rock music, but whose faith has been tested by the lack of opportunities that’s plagued the city.

In fact, the entire crowd was packed with people who exemplify the typical Kolkata audience. There was a middle-aged man wearing a white shirt and beige trousers pulled up by suspenders, who looked like he belonged to one of the city’s colonial-era clubs but seemed equally at ease in a place packed with college kids. There were musicians who are talented enough to make their mark in any other metro, but who remain as local heroes in the place of their birth, choosing a life of comfort over the struggle and the rat race that, say, Mumbai entails. There was one girl who is completing her higher studies in London and is back in India for her vacations – she had brought her sister, brother-in-law and even her mother to the gig for a proper family reunion. And then there was the lone ranger, a super-fan of sorts who immersed himself in his own world when the gig started, proceeding to head-bang so hard that at one point, a girl trying to evade his wildly flowing shoulder-length hair gave a look of real concern that read, “Is he OK?”

The answer is that he was more than OK. He was actually having the time of his life, and that brings us to the point of this article. How unfair is it on this super-fan that he can truly let loose the way he did only once in a blue moon? There are a few other music venues in the city, notably Skinny Mo’s. But the acts that these places cater to are of a different variety. They fit the jazz or singer-songwriter mold more than bands that thrash it out on stage with three guitars and a drum kit. And the fallout of such a scenario is that local rock bands are dying like a person thirsting for water when marooned in a desert. That holds at least partially true for all the other major cities in the country (we will follow this article up later with a comprehensive list of live music venues across India, to illustrate how woeful the number really is). So, riddle me this – how is the independent-music ecosystem expected to grow when it lacks the basic infrastructure of bringing an eager audience under the same roof as the bands they are keen to listen to?

It’s an uphill battle for sure. Venues and promoters will argue that it’s more cost-effective to program a solitary DJ than a full-fledged band with multiple members, especially if they are from a different city and need flight tickets plus accommodation. They might even offer the cop-out excuse that electronica artists command a bigger audience than rock acts or even hip-hop crews, and that jazz has always attracted a niche crowd anyway. But in doing so, they’d fail to realize that when you point one finger at someone, there are three other fingers pointing back at you. It’s in their hands to build a culture where music aficionados have a problem of plenty when it comes to attending live gigs. That’s how bands will also get a chance to build on their craft, and there’s definite scope for improvement on their part too (look at it this way: the chances of an Indian indie act headlining a global music festival are as far-fetched as the Indian football team making it to the World Cup finals). But ultimately, our point remains.

If profit margins are all that the industry’s back-end movers and shakers are running after, then they might as well admit to being Shylocks extracting their pound of flesh than being the Florence Nightingales of the indie scene.