One of the crowd’s favourite at the ‘Hard Rock Cafe Battle of the Bands’ that took place earlier this year, Blacklisted was invited back for an encore on July 21 in the city.This four piece band includes Abhinav on the lead, Samudra on the vocals, Sriram on the bass and Niranjan on the drums. The band mostly played their own compositions while doing a few covers. They opened the night with I’m a good man, followed by Jam, Bring it back, We can be friends, Sex and Same mistake, among others.Their covers included I’ve got mine by The Black Keys and Sexy back by Justin Timberlake.While the start of the show at 9:20 pm didn’t really have much of a crowd or enthusiasm, by the time they took a break at 10 pm, the floor in front of the stage was packed with cheering audience.Vocalist Samudra kept up the tempo in between songs by talking to his audience.The band kept their timing tight which came through their songs as their pauses for effect were almost perfectly synchronised. Fans who knew their songs sang along while their covers had pretty much everyone chorusing with them. Their energy on stage was infectious while each of the musicians seemed to be up stage for themselves and their songs than their audience. Their rock songs had a pulsating effect all over the place.Blacklisted has been actively performing and competing since 2008, when it was formed, and has its own compositions as its trademark.What started off as inspiration by two guys has turned into quite the collaboration.Over the years the band has metamorphed, changing outfit by losing and adding new musicians to finally settle as they are now. Their band manager, the lead guitarist Abhinav said, “Being bored and jobless, and with a sense of achieving something in life, Ninju and I decided to start a band and do something different with our spare time.With the inclusion of Ritwik (former bass player) and Samudra the band was complete.We spent a year, playing competitions and shows around India and ended up building a fan base.” In the two and half years that they have been active, Blacklisted became a formidable band with a profile like winning the National Law School’s Strawberry Fields 2009, runners up at the Campus Rock Idols 2009, best rock act at Underground 2009 (Unwind Centre), runners up at Powerchord - Saarang (IIT-M) 2009 and finalists at Decibels - Saarang (IIT-M) 2010, among others.Besides competing, the band has also performed in a couple of places like Kyra in Bengaluru. Samudra, the vocalist, said, “We really haven’t come up with a real definition for the music we play, as we draw influences from various kinds of music.So we call ourselves an alternative rock band.”
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