These Are The 5 Things You Might Have Missed at the Pune Music Festival 2016

I had the fortunate luck of having musically trained friends at the Fest, so I might not know how much trouble the bands have gone through and what efforts they put in to get a scale right, but I’m going to write about it either way from the wise words of my companions.

You come in a group or as a couple in love or alone, you were bound to be mesmerized by the weekend specially scheduled for you.

This was the last show of Saturday and it ended just right. With this Indian rock band who have feathered their caps with songs like the Splitsvilla Love Song and the Roadies Theme song, audiences went crazy jumping and clapping for their songs.

The first performance on Sunday was by the Raghu Dixit project. They started off slow but gradually picked up the tempo by playing a Kannada folk song about why a man worries about the world he lives in so much. They later played requests from the audiences for ‘Hey Bhagwan’ and ‘Ambar’. The booze, the sunset and the folk music added a vibe incomparable.

The Indian fusion rock band lead by Rahul Ram just had to play ‘Tandanu’ to get the crowd going crazy. This folk music with drums and table had everyone jumping and raising their cups to the incredible band. So mellifluous was the music, that I honestly felt that the other bands could take a Conga Lesson or two from them. And guess when everyone lost their minds? When this band played ‘Bandeh’. With everyone singing the lyrics with tears in their eyes, one could feel how much the music really touches the hearts.

You know that point where you’re absolutely drenched with folk and jazz music and you need a taste of something else? That was the exact point where Lost stories had us banging our heads to EDM. With two most appreciated artists, Prayag Mehta and Rishabh Joshi, this band took out all the feels and gave everyone the invisible dancing shoes. And boy, did everyone dance their ass*s off. That’s the aura of a good music festival, you can dance to anything. From songs like Adele’s ‘Hello’, Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’, Coldplay’s ‘Hymn for the weekend’ and charters from the best Djs around the world, the duo made sure we did the utmost ‘ghaati’ dance moves for remixes of ‘DDLJ’, ‘DJ wale babu’, etc.

Palash Sen.

This is enough to let you know how epic it was at the end of the music festival. This band ended with a bang. Many artists have joined and left the band and as Palash correctly put it ‘Euphoria ke nadi mein sabne paani piya hai’. With white uniforms and a head full of notes and scales, they made the crowd go crazy. But by this time it was pretty normal to go crazy.

And yes, everyone’s going to ask how Himesh Reshammiya’s performance was.

I’m going to give facts. No opinions from my side:

His act was 45 minutes long. He played medleys of his songs and other artists’ songs. Some songs were performed incredibly well. But rest were nasal. Most of the crowd was drunk (hic), and they swore they became sober after listening to him perform. All in all, an okay-ish routine.

Beer, Vodka, Whiskey. You name it (and pay for it) it was right there. With most of the crowd drunk and drowning in their highs, there were still people above 50s who came for the sole intent of listening to good folk music.

After all it was a Gourmet Renaissance Fest. The food was amazing, but the dishes will cut a hole in your pocket. Non-vegetarian was better than the Vegetarian food (or as my friends called it, ghaas pus). It was truly a renaissance, fresh flavours, unimaginable combos and mouth watering taste.

I didn’t get a chance to go to after party at Fly High. But if you did make it there, leave your thoughts about it in the comments section.