Bands to watch out for in city

Madhapur/Kondapur: It is a Saturday and Raghav VK is gearing up for a musical nite. “I work for five days and wait for weekends to unwind with music,” says the coder who works in an IT company in Nanakramguda.  Like him, there are scores of IT and IT-enabled Services employees in the city who have been shuttling their time between the cubicle and the dance floor. Thanks to the growing number of bars and clubs, budding musicians are getting chance to showcase their talent. 

With over 100 bars and clubs with live music, there has been a definitive demand for musicians in the last five years. There are 22 active bands in city that concentrate on pop, jazz, progressive rock, heavy metal and even experimentalists vie for piece of the pie. Bands like Phoenix, Threeory, Capricio and Jammers have created their own space and have their own fan following. “We started with a motive to make an impact in the youth.

Specifically for youngsters who fell for addictions, by connecting to them with our style and try our best to counsel them in a way where we share some experiences and encourage them" says a member of the phoenix band. IT and ITeS employees join the bands on weekends and holidays and in what can be termed as a new trend, several bands also rope in graduate students with an interest in music. 

"We always knew that people of Hyderabad listened to Hindi as well as Telugu songs, but we never had a place allowing us to play Telugu songs. Except this one place called 'The Moon Shine Project' owned by Hemendar, who wanted us to play a two hour piece of only Telugu songs" says Sai Teja, a Cajon player of Capricio band.

Garry Mathew, 17, a student from St Andrews School, a keyboard player of Phoenix-Hyderabad band says, “We rehearse whenever we get time during the weekdays and book the band for the weekends.” Chinna Swami, 30, from the Jammers band, currently works as a program producer along with playing guitar for his band as a part time job. There are many leaving their regular jobs to join bands full-time.

    -Shehzad Abwani