Reality shows have struck a chord with audiences across the world and of course in India. With shows popping up every other day, there seems to be a show on every theme! Reality shows involving music have of course been some of the biggest successes with shows like Indian Idol. But the kind of music involved has been limited and other genres have not been explored.
The Independence Rock festival, one of the biggest rock fests in the country, which is usually restricted to Mumbai, has moved out this time, fanning across Delhi and Bangalore as well. But that’s not all that’s different, this time’s I-rock has quite a few twists thrown in. Nokia, has teemed up with I-rock and is brought in a few contests to change the level of interaction between the  audience and the bands. The first aspect of Nokia’s involvement in the fest is mobile blogging. Each band is has been given a N-series phone to enable them to blog about their experiences starting from the selection rounds to the finals, apart from writing about their band and their music. The second aspect is the ‘Blog and Win’ wherein people can capture videos (using their phones) of the bands in action and post it on Nokia Nseries website. The videos will be judged by an exclusive panel of judges. The final contest is the music video contest which will ask the audience at concerts to submit a theme music video concept which compliments their favourite band. The winners of this will actually get to work on a music video with their rock idols.
With so much technology thrown in to music, we asked the bands what they felt about it. Metrolife caught up with members of three bands- Panatella, Kryptos and Extinct Reflections (ER). Says Rohit Chaturvedi of Kryptos, “The blogging has brought in a whole new angle to the concerts because we can are able to increase our fanbase and more people know about us and our music.” “The blogs are helping us connect to the audience because they listen to our music, interact with us and of course watch videos of the concerts as well” adds Sandesh N of ER. All the bands agree that it’s about time reality shows with different genres of music.
Another interesting point that the bands brought up was the need to move away from contests. “In India most often we have only contests. It’s time we moved away from them and had more concerts. Contests are good to a certain extent that they get the bands to perform their best. But it doesn’t promote a positive attitude, we feel too competitive. Concerts will allow music to be appreciated” says Narayan S of ER. This certainly brings up an interesting point as it it’s obvious that while we have many international concerts we hardly have an Indian ones. The selection rounds in the City are over and the finalists for the City finals are Synaps (Bangalore), Caesers Palace (Bangalore), Panatella (Chennai) and Afterburn (Chennai). The finals are on September 2 at Palace Grounds, Gayatri Vihar entrance, the gates open at 5 pm. Tickets are priced at Rs 150 and are available at Le Rock Cafe and Legends of Rock and the venue on the day of the show. P.D.V and Parikrama will be headlining for the contest. So get ready to rock and be part of one of the biggest rock fests in more than just one way. 
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