more-in Puducherry’s Ashok Beach Resort is almost the perfect setting for an event like the Bacardi NH7 Weekender. A large open-air performance activity space parked right beside the Bay of Bengal is where you envision good music being made, and inebriated youngsters dancing in Bachhanalian fervour. This was what happened, if in slightly subdued tones at the Puducherry edition of Bacardi NH7 Weekender’s Express leg on Sunday (November 19), featuring performances by Ritviz, Parvaaz, Skrat, Divine, and Indian Ocean. NH7 Weekender was conceptualised in 2009, and the first edition was held in Pune in December 2010 — over three days, four stages, and featuring 35 acts. Since then, the festival has branched out to other cities — Delhi NCR, Shillong and Bengaluru — and featured some of the biggest musicians on the international stage, including the likes of Steven Wilson, Jon Hopkins, Steve Vai, MuteMath, Mogwai, Megadeth, and Bombay Bicycle Club. NH7 Weekender launched one-day Express editions last year, where the festival travelled to the coastal city for the first time. The event is usually organised carnivalesque proportions — food counters, clothing and accessory counters, activity spaces, photo booths, trampolines, and the like. But the Express editions are shorn of any of this sheen. Puducherry had none of these, and featured little for teetotallers. The ground was sparsely filled, and the crowd took time to grow into the festive air. A few pegs of white rum here and there may have helped. With the sun still bright, scorching the dry grass and reflecting in the waves, Pune-based DJ Ritviz opened the day’s proceeding, half an hour past schedule. At 5 pm, it was still too sunny to let your hair down. While Ritviz went about his beats professionally, the crowd was still trickling in, and not entirely convinced with the setting. They walked in languidly, and found spaces in the shades across the ground. For Louis, from France, in India for an assignment in Chennai with FSL India, NH7 Weekender Puducherry was his first music festival in the country. He heard of the event on Facebook, and decided to make a weekend adventure of it. “I’d like to get to know the country better, and know how Indians celebrate.” He hadn’t heard of any of the artistes performing, but hoped to take away something of Indian music culture. But he did admit that festivals he’d been to around the world were usually more active, and crowded. “It’s so packed that people have to climb on others to get a view of the performer.” It wasn’t till the sunset an hour later, the stage lights creating a trance-like atmosphere, when Bengaluru-based rock group Parvaaz took up their arms, and set the evening alight. Crooning their Kashmiri and Urdu lyrics, Parvaaz drew the audience off their backs, to the front of the stage, and had them head-banging — finally. A member of the Bengaluru-based band Parvaaz gets the audienceto jive. | Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar For 66-year-young Shivan, festivals like NH7 Weekender are essential to improve the scenario of independent music in Puducherry. “You can be sure that there will never be an indie band from Puducherry,” he laments. His daughter, Zoe, accompanying him on the day, disagrees. She says Puducherry’s music culture is well and truly alive and can only get stronger. “Weekender presents a great blend of Eastern and Western music traditions, and that’s why I’m here.”

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