Nine languages. One stage.

Indiestaan and the GIFLIF Drive-In Music Fest, Bhopal.

Lucky Ali

Bhopal · ~8,000 people

A full field

Bhopal

Thaikkudam Bridge

Malayalam · Tamil · Hindi

Parvaaz

Kashmiri · Urdu

Alif

Kashmiri · Urdu

Bloodywood

Hindi · Punjabi · English

Rabbi Shergill

Punjabi

Indian Ocean

Hindi · instrumental

Raghu Dixit

Kannada · Hindi

Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Cafe

Hindi · Kabir’s dialect

The main stage

Bhopal

GIFLIF Drive-In Music Fest

Bhopal · our own IP

Why the language breadth is the whole point

Most Indian festival line-ups are Hindi and English with a regional act booked as texture. We build the other way round: a Kashmiri progressive rock band, a Malayalam metal band and a Punjabi Sufi songwriter on the same night, to the same crowd, in a city that was told it had no audience for any of them.

• Nobody translates down. Parvaaz sing in Kashmiri and Urdu; Thaikkudam Bridge switch between Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi inside one set.
• The genres do not agree either. Folk metal next to Sufi-rock next to raga-rooted fusion next to a violin-led instrumental act.
• The cities are the other half of the argument. Bhopal and Gurugram, not the four metros that already get everything.

The acts, and what each one actually brings

What these artists do, in what language, and why they were booked.

Malayalam · Tamil · Hindi · Rock · metal · folk

Thaikkudam Bridge

Formed in Kerala in 2013 out of the Music Mojo sessions. Their debut Navarasam moves between Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi in a single record, and “Fish Rock” is a death-metal song about fish fry. Twelve-odd people on stage.

Kashmiri · Urdu · Progressive & psychedelic rock

Parvaaz

Formed in Bengaluru in 2010 by Khalid Ahamed and Mir Kashif Iqbal, both from Srinagar. They sing in Kashmiri and Urdu over progressive rock. Albums: Baran (2014), Kun (2019).

Kashmiri · Urdu · Poetry set to contemporary music

Alif

Mohammad Muneem’s band, named for the first letter of the Urdu alphabet. He rejects the “Kashmiri Sufi rock” label — his own description is Kashmiri and Urdu poetry with contemporary music. “Ride Home”, “Jhelumas”.

Kannada · Hindi · Folk-rock

Raghu Dixit

The Raghu Dixit Project took Kannada folk to stages that had never programmed it, barefoot and in a lungi. One of the few Indian acts with a real international touring life.

Hindi · instrumental · Fusion · raga rock

Indian Ocean

The band that made Indian independent music a category at all. Four decades of raga-rooted rock built on long instrumental passages rather than verse-chorus.

Hindi · Punjabi · English · Indian folk metal

Bloodywood

Delhi. Dhol and flute against down-tuned guitars. India’s biggest metal export.

Punjabi · Sufi-rock

Rabbi Shergill

“Bulla Ki Jaana” put 17th-century Punjabi Sufi poetry on national radio untranslated.

Hindi · Kabir’s dialect · Folk-rock

Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Cafe

Five hundred year old Kabir couplets, played as a live band. The songs are about death, hypocrisy and the futility of ritual, and audiences sing every word back.

Hindi · Singer-songwriter

Lucky Ali

His first performance in Bhopal, and one of the largest ticketed music crowds the city has had — around 8,000 people. A hook, not the headline.

Also programmed

Kannada · Hindi · Folk-rock

Swarathma

Bengaluru. Theatrical, political, and built for a live crowd rather than a record.

Hindi · Rock

Agnee

One of the earliest Hindi rock acts to cross into the mainstream without softening.

Hindi · Urdu · Singer-songwriter

Kavish Seth

Brother of Kanishk. Invented the noorie, an instrument of his own.

Hindi · Electronic · folk fusion

Kanishk Seth

Brother of Kavish. Both have played our stages.

Hindi · Tamil · Rock fusion

Anand Bhaskar Collective

Also curated by us for the VIT Bhopal festival.

Hindi · Rock

Bombay Bandook

Hindi · Punjabi · Folk fusion

Chaar Hazaari

Instrumental · Violin-led fusion

Fiddle Craft

Hindi · Urdu · Poetry-rock

Ballimaaraan

Piyush Mishra launched the band at our festival — their first show anywhere.

Persian · Urdu · Indo-Persian

Narang Ensemble

The Indo-Persian act on the bill — Persian musical tradition meeting Indian arrangement. The clearest example of how far outside the Hindi-English default the programming goes.

The Western Ghats

Britto KC

Progressive rock

Sutej Singh

Indiestaan Concerts — the touring side

The same programming runs at club and venue scale as Indiestaan Concerts — single shows and multi-city tours built around one artist rather than a full bill. It is how the IP travels outside its two festival cities, and it works at a very different budget size from a festival.

• The Rangi Saari tour with Kanishk Seth — a five-city run across Bhopal, Gurugram, Mumbai, Nagpur and Kolkata, including a night at antiSOCIAL in Mumbai. A different promoter and a different room in each city.
• Kavish Seth Collective with Bombay Bandook at antiSOCIAL — a signature curation: two acts paired for one room, programmed the way an Indiestaan festival slot is.

Counting the festival and the concerts together, Indiestaan has staged live music in five cities — Bhopal, Gurugram, Mumbai, Nagpur and Kolkata.

What it takes to programme a festival like this

Booking across nine languages is a different skill from booking nine famous acts. You are holding an audience that arrived for one band through the next one, in a language most of the room does not speak.

• Order matters more than names. A Kashmiri set placed wrong empties a field. Placed right it is the moment people remember.
• Riders differ wildly. A twelve-piece Malayalam rock band and a solo singer-songwriter need different stages, monitors and load-in windows.
• The audience has to be built, not assumed. This is where the audience platform earns its keep — we price and target city by city rather than hoping.

Related reading

Questions we get asked