Last Band Playing

Has the Bangla-band boom gone bust?

Just when we were learning to deal with the ennui that jibonmukhi gaan had left us with after a few years’ riot,we were shaken out of our boredom by a robust dose of drums and guitars breathing fire into a string of colloquial Bengali words. While some took the folksy route,some hammered our senses with rock-like riffs and bingo,Bangla bands had arrived. Bhoomi,Cactus,Chandrabindoo,Krosswindz,Fossils – the list was endless and so were the possibilities. And suddenly,there was one Bangla band in very corner of the city.  The formula was sort of simple – bandanas,torn denims and guitars turned the Bengali idiom of disciplined cultural pursuit on its head,infused a generous dose of a headbanger’s spirit in it and had a whole generation was rocking to the tunes of the Bangla band. While the big names sung to packed audiences,there were smaller bands mushrooming all over the state. Ten years down,we are left with just a handful of names that shone during the Bangla band boom. We don’t hear of new bands,we don’t hear of mad Bangla band concerts,somewhere the enthusiasm seems to have fizzled out. So,what spelt nemesis for the great Bangla band boom?“I think it’s the lack of originality. The bands which have remained,if you see,have created a brand out of themselves. Folk,rock or contemporary – these bands held on to their genre and didn’t essentially try and play to the galleries. Reason why they are still afloat,” says Sthitodhee Saraswati,an IT professional and a Fossils fan. A credible reason,given that several of the new bands fizzled out within months because they were mostly clones of each other. There was little different in the music,the lyrics were mostly about unrequited love and the young musicians seemed more in love with the spectacle that was a Bangla band that music itself. “Also,I guess there was the general lack of interest that follows a frenzy around something. Several Bangla bands rode around the aura around them – one of irreverence,people saw the dope and music prototype of the West in these bands. Something that sounded cool because it was new,” says Debaditya Bhattacharya,a PhD student in Delhi.