I’ll be quite honest in admitting that I was at this gig, the 2 Stroke Tour, predominantly to see Skrat who are one of my favourite Indian bands. There has been a lot of noise about the post-rock outfit from Ahmedabad, ‘As we keep searching’ (AWKS), who opened the gig for Skrat. Call it old school mentality but I’m not a big fan of the post-rock genre in general. I find the licks to be a bit repetitive in nature and is not something I would listen to by itself. I do however find most post-rock sounds to be well-suited for background scores of good modern cinema. That being said, AWKS didn’t do anything to change my opinion of the genre.
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| AWKS |
The band does have high energy and has garnered a small fan base that will keep growing with the popularity of the genre in India. A Rolling Stone article named Bangalore as the unofficial capital of post-rock in India. This sort of held true with the near full house that had turned up for the gig and were head banging away. The sound of the band is a lot heavier than a lot of the other bands in this space. I attribute a lot of that to the drumming which was precise and heavy, and was the one big positive I would take away from this particular gig.
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| AWKS |
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| AWKS |
I would have to call out one thing that did not sit well with me, which was the band’s post-rock cover of Avial’s Aranda. Personally, to me it was definitely a chapter in the book of ‘How not play covers’. That aside, I’m neutral on the sound of the band overall, but a big thumbs up for the drumming.
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| AWKS |
Skrat – need I say more? This particular gig of Skrat was the last gig of their 2Stroke tour with As We Keep Searching who was the opening act. Besides that, this was the last gig in the city with Satish Narayanan on bass for Skrat. Sats has decided to part ways with the band and move to Canada to pursue the great Indian dream of doing an MBA abroad. Almost all the regulars in the Bangalore scene had turned up for this gig.
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| Skrat |
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| Skrat |
As always, Skrat delivered a high energy performance with the crowd going nuts and mosh pits erupting towards the end. Playing a healthy mix from all their albums so far, the band once again brought down the house. There really isn’t anything I can say that hasn’t been said before.
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| Skrat |
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| Skrat |
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| Skrat |
We’re all looking forward to whom would replace Sats on bass and wish them all the best in continuing the Skrat journey. A big thanks and best wishes to Sats for all the gigs.
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