It’s perhaps the most culturally rich weekend in the year. The Mumbai Lit Fest is slated for the November 2 to 4 weekend, so are the jazz festival at the NCPA and ThiNK festival in Goa. But all roads lead to Pune’s Bacardi NH7 Weekender.

Coming back with the third edition of this annual event, the second leg of the NH7 Weekender promises to offer a plethora of artistes across all sorts of genres. And as usual the focus is on indie musicians who are in fact genre defying.
Perhaps the biggest non-mainstream artist to grace an event would be Seun Kuti. Kuti, the son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti will be leading his late father’s band Egypt 80. The rhythm, the energy and the Afro vibe are sure to set the Dewarists Stage on fire.
Arjun Vagale, who is performing at the Eristoff Wolves Den, is a big fan of Kuti and his band of merrymen. “I’m really looking forward to catching Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. My wife and I would have travelled to the festival just to catch them. Their big band sound is so hypnotic yet funky, I can’t wait to hear them. A unique chance to hear Afrobeat in India.”
Also performing on the Dewarists Stage is Karsh Kale. He says, “I’m really excited about my performance at Bacardi NH7 Weekender this year. In a sense, it’s come full circle for me — I met most of the members of my present band Karsh Kale Collectiv at the festival last year, when I was curating the NH7 All Stars set for the finale. Over the last year, they’ve become my new band, and new family in the country.”
Kale is eager to try some of the new material he’s put together this past year. “I’m hoping to debut some of it at The Dewarists Stage at the festival this year. I love performing in Pune — it has a great audience, who are really receptive to new sounds and experimentation. The Weekender is one of the best festivals in the country — its really well organised and there’s a great lineup this year.” Also gracing the Dewarists Stage are Mumbai fusion rock act Kailasa, Carnatic rock band Agam, folk fusion band La Pongal and Bengaluru’s Thermal And A Quarter. Another crowdpuller from Bengaluru is Raghu Dixit and Friends.
Rock lovers can throng the Bacardi Black Rock Arena as the best of the genre in India and internationally will set foot on this stage. Australia’s Karnivool will be headlining the event on this stage but
Coming after a hugely successful opening performance for Santana are Indus Creed. India’s most popular rock band is enjoying a dream second coming, agrees frontman Uday Benegal. “When we reunited, we hadn’t envisaged how this would be. It was great opening for Santana and what really made the entire experience amazing was the fact that Santana himself really liked our performance. That sort of gratification is hard to come by. We’re coming to the Bacardi NH7 Weekender with a lot of excitement. Obviously, we’re most eager to get up on stage and perform. But apart from that I’m looking forward to checking out a lot of acts, namely Karnivool, Pangea and Spud in the Box,” he says.
Benegal adds that Indus Creed will most probably be playing a song from their latest album which they don’t play live all that often.
While the musical quotient is clearly very high at the concert, Delhi’s BLOT! is going to be the audio-visual star of the festival. Performing for the first time at the festival in the Eristoff Wolves Den, BLOT!’s Avinash Kumar, says, “We have been hearing really great things about the festival from artists and audiences since the last two years, so it would be great to see what the buzz is about. From what I hear, it’s a very well planned festival and has a good, friendly vibe. We are landing from Germany and doing NH7 post that, so there would be a lot of new ideas and inspiration we would be experimenting with hopefully.”
Popular British composer and tabla player of Indian origin Talvin Singh, responsible for creating an innovative fusion of Indian classical music and drum and bass, will also be performing at the festival. Singh has in the past collaborated with a variety of acts including Madonna and Massive Attack.
Those who love music genre irrespective should check out the Bindass Fully Fantastic Stage. NH7.in curates the music, programming popular favourites that cannot be missed to quickly rising new bands that must be on your radar for the coming year. Indie darlings Adam and The Fish Eyed Poets (Chennai), gypsy jazz/cabaret act Peter Cat Recording Co. (Delhi), garage punk act The Lightyears Explode (Mumbai), post punk act, who’ve recently made a much talked about comeback The Supersonics (Kolkata), Brooklyn hip-hop act Das Racist (New York), outspoken rap act Gandu Circus and rock act Spud In The Box (Mumbai) are all set to take stage.
The Pepsi Dub Station, riding high on the dubstep wave that seems to be enveloping the country, will showcase the best of dancehall vibes, reggae, dubstep and drum and bass. The lineup this year features hip-hop, dubstep, drum and bass act Delhi Sultanate (Delhi), Bay Beat Collective Raffael Kably’s new ambient project Mode 7 (Mumbai), bass artist Cee (Kuala Lumpur), future garage sounds with Sandunes (Mumbai), dubstep act Sound Avtar (Mumbai), reggae artist Mr. Williamz (London), reggae act Balkan HiFi (Croatia) among many others.