The Winners Take it All

The awards night will see performances by four bands — The Lightyears Explode, Coshish, Adil & Vasundhara and Tough On Tobacco.

The Lightyears Explode have received five nominations.

The annual rock awards, which is held in association with Rolling Stone, is back with its ninth edition.

The nominations this year are a mixed bag of artistes from across the country. The awards night will see performances by four bands — The Lightyears Explode, Coshish, Adil & Vasundhara and Tough On Tobacco.

Tough on Tobacco storms the list this year with six nominations. After a gap of four years since their last release, the Sid Coutto-lead project, came out with Big Big Joke, a massive double CD album which was well received by both critics and audiences. Delhi-based jazz fusion act, Adil & Vasundhara too have received six nominations.

It’s heartening to see last year’s breakthrough artistes, The Lightyears Explode and Nischay Parekh get a nod at the awards. While the former — punk band from Mumbai — has bagged five nominations at the awards thanks to their critically acclaimed album, The Revenge of Kalicharan, Parekh who released the easy-going electro-pop album, Ocean, has been given three, including Best Emerging Artist.

Bands that have not had any PR buzz around have made it to the list too, including electro-rock band Jester; Coshish, who released their progressive rock album Firdous; and electronica group Tankbund. The best metal band award will be closely fought among Chaos, Cosmic Infusion, Devoid, Heretic, Reptilian Death and Reverrse Polarity.

Despite the goof-ups and celebrity presenters in the past, the organisers have been upping their game each time.

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