Bandland 2024

So I was on a business trip to Bangelore, India, expecting nothing special and avoiding the weekend tourist trips to catch up on sleep instead. And I hadn't even bothered to look for local music events asI usually do, because I have no idea which concert venues in Bangalore are accessible for unexperienced foreign travellers, and what are the chances that a band would play where I have any idea what's going on, on one of the two weekends I happen to be there?

And then a locsl colleague casually mentions that Bloodywood (one of the one-and-a-half Indian bands I've heard before) is playing at a festival called Bandland. So we got one-day tickets for Saturday and went there straight away.

First band was a really good in-your-face deathcore outfit from Mumbai, a lot of fun (circlepit, wall of desth and all) and highly recommended.

Ghen we listened to guitarrist Sutej Singh, an impressive stage presence with a tallguy with black beard, black turban, black shirt, black trousers, black ankle long coat, and professional drummer/bassist support for what was essentially a 40 minute blues rock guitar solo. Truly fascinating performance, and so exciting when instruments can sing like this guitar.

As tbough the coincidence wasn't big enough, I even ran into a German colleague and his wife who were stopping over in BLR to visit friends on the way home from a vacation. They even made it to the Insta page of the event.

Bloodywood played to a home crowd who apprecisted all of their themes, from the general songs about overcoming depression and fear to the pride of Indian culture expressed in their food.

And I have never heard a crowd sing along so loud as in the final headliner performance of Avenged Sevenfold. Wow.