Metalheads soak in the CultFest

Rain or no rain, Bengaluru proved last Saturday it is still the metal capital of India in a resounding manner at CultFest -a metal music festival organised by city-based event management firm Bohemian Live in association with Bangalore Mirror at the Manpho Spectrum ground in Hebbal. Rain only added to the madness -that metalheads thrive on -that headlining acts Cannibal Corpse and Suicide Silence unleashed at the first edition of CultFest. “The experience of headbanging in the rain to Cannibal Corpse and Suicide Silence just took things to a whole new level,“ said Vishwas K V, a death metal fan who is employed at HSBC bank.For the uninitiated, Cannibal Corpse is one of the top-selling death metal bands of all time, and Suicide Silence is the winner of Revolver Golden God award for Best New Talent in 2009. Suicide Silence s one among the new wave of American metal bands who mix the brutal, crushing style of death metal with a more groove-oriented metal core element.Saturday evening saw long serpentine queues of metalheads in black tees in front of the venue.With the afternoon being warm and sunny, not many would have expected it to rain the way it did.Before the two big bands took stage, keeping the crows engaged were three bands -Plague Throat, death metal giants from Shillong; Abraxas, a progressive metal band rom Pune; and Pyramids, a New Delhi-based band that won Thursday night's Battle of the Bands at Indigo Live Music Bar and earned the right to be an opening act.Aamir Anwar, lead vocalist o Pyramids, said, “The Bengaluru metal scene is amazing. We loved the crowd here. They just threw the energy right back at us. It was over whelming and surreal.“Abraxus, who have opened for Iron Maiden and Lamb of God, were equally ecstatic about opening for Cannibal Corpse. The band's drum mer Samarth Trehan said, “It's a dream come true. Most of our crew took a liking towards metal after listening to Cannibal Corpse. To open for them is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we are glad that we got do so.“Late into the evening, the organisers sounded a storm warning. Not surprisingly, it only seemed to get the metalheads into a frenzy.Although Suicide Silence were asked to cut down their set list by a couple of songs, lead vocalist Eddie Hermida held the crowd in a trance while belting out some of the band's popular songs. He even went on to play a song requested by the crowd.By 8 pm, it was pouring and every person on the ground was drenched. However, any anxiousness about Cannibal Corpse's performance was put to rest when its vocalist George `Corpsegrinder' Fisher took stage with “Hello Bangaloreee“. What followed was 45 minutes of pure unadulterated joy. It was a sight to behold the metalheads headbanging in unison in the rain. The band's bass guitarist Alex Webster enthralled the crowd with a bass solo -which was probably one of the reasons why metalhead Arka S, who works for McAfee, said, “My life can have a full stop after this.“Soon the rain-curtailed event came to a close it was a mad rush to get out of rain and reach the safety of home. The slushy parking area was a nightmare for motorists, more specifically for those on two-wheelers. But Jagan S, a student, said, “I would swim across an ocean of slush if I could get into another one of these events.“— Melwyn KS