Dhatu Drishya

It has been a while since I featured concert promoters on the blog. There have been a steady rise in metal concerts in Delhi over the past couple of years and I’ll be speaking to the people behind them. The first is the team behind the Dhatu Drishya.

 

Hi, you are gearing up for the 7th edition of the Dhatu Drishya. How are preparations going for the gig?

Umm we still need to work on the after party packs and quantity of the booze. Kidding! We are all set with the preparations part of this event. We always try to finish the preparation section a month before hosting the gig and we are really excited since like every time the line-up is kickass. Noiseware is headlining this gig and it’s been quite a long time to see these boys in Capital and at the same time we have 1833 A.D performing which itself has been in the Indian metal scene from past 10 years plus 2 totally new acts Jammers Graveyard (Guwahati) and Brazen Molok (Raipur) to look forward to. We hope that our fellow metalheads are also excited as we are.

How did the Dhatu Drishya series of gigs start?

Well that’s a long story but I can sum it up as – a new baker in town sets up his shop for cookies and all he wants is people to come taste and acknowledge its food for which he has worked hard on for several years and getting feedback so that he can make it more better and serve much better and tasty products. Setting up a new bakery or a band is a same thing and it applies in our rock / metal industry as well. One evening we were hunting ducks and chicks and went to a Chinese van to eat and then we passed out as we were drunk and decided to just chill.We realized that we are not the only one who needs people to acknowledge our music just like other local artists who work hard for several years put their heart and soul, sweat and money just to communicate their perceptions of life through their music and hear original music as much as possible. That was the day we decided to put up our first DIY gig in Sep 9, 2016 in Antisocial and everyone really appreciated our idea of bringing out fresh artists/ bands from different parts of the country. Eventually we decided to put this event every now and then so that people could hear and acknowledge more and more original music. We hope to continue in a same manner.

How do you select the bands that will perform at shows?

We have a set team we call it ‘Crew’ and friends from the scene. Every time we decide to put up a show we audition out around 8 or 9 bands/ artists from the entries we receive 2 months before the event date and we do Ini Mini Miny Moe then we ask the people from the scene only if they would like to see these bands performing live. In the same process we try our best possible way to select at least 1 act from the entries which is very new in the scene and has their original tracks ready and has a very limited experience of playing a live gig. Let me add one more thing that performing a gig is very different than competing in a battle of bands. So we make sure that quality and newness should remain intact as it should for a gig and we try our best not to disappoint the artist and the people who are coming for the shows as well.

What has been the most memorable show you have organized so far?

Each and every gig we have organized has been the most memorable experiences of our lives. Every show has its own uniqueness and memories to cherish. There is so much more than just hearing live music in our shows. You get to meet so many people who eventually become your brothers and best buddies, talk about music, talk about the independent art scene and we get to meet those bands and artists who have actually influenced us to create music and keep these genres active in our country and learn so many things from the experiences of these artists like We are really big Fans of PRIMITIV an old school thrash metal act from Mumbai and I personally never missed any show whenever they came to Delhi and last time we got them as our headliner which was like a dream coming true to meet these guys and share some thoughts about the very same music genre. So it’s always a special kind of feeling and boost in our blood veins when we get to see these artists playing on stage and see a very different style of music and each band and artist has something different to offer from their bags of creativity.

What are 5 bands that the readers should check out?

Ah it’s hard for me to say just 5 bands cz they are so many Indian metal acts people know less about and I would suggest people should really check out some artists who are not such big acts from our country but really have the potential to become one and that’s what we are looking forward to. From our playlist people should definitely check these 5 metal bands from our country.

1. Primitiv (Mumbai)

2. Ayog (Nagpur)

3. Acid Pit (New Delhi)

4. Adamantium (Pune)

5. Dymbur (Shilong)

Do you plan on taking Dhatu Drishya to other cities?

Yeah definitely and why not. We really want to expand our boundaries and explore new musicians and Indian metal bands which we haven’t seen or heard yet. So yeah if we get a chance and favorable conditions, we would surely organize something out of Capital and would like to promote as much as fresh acts as possible.

Do you have any more shows planned for this year?

As of now we cannot commit since we plan our next event once the upcoming event has been wrapped up but yeah Dhatu Drishya has some plans for future gigs just need to work out with the funds and other aspects since we do not have any sponsors and we do all of these events by saving our salaries and our pocket monies. We look forward to organize as many gigs like these as possible.

Thanks for answering all my questions. Do you have anything else to add?

It’s still a very small circle we have built over a long period of time in Indian Metal scene. We know that people have their own taste but we want them to acknowledge that Metal is also a form of music that people usually are not much aware of in our country and there are pretty kickass Indian artists who have set the world in amaze that this country has the talent which has been forged in fire and over the years of practice that is required to play such badass music.So start appreciating these fellas and all those you know who play live music. Your friends, a local artist you saw last weekend in club where you just went to chill out. And Indian Metal scene is emerging slowly but for sure is emerging and we can only put our efforts as much it’s possible at the end the people coming together to support are essence of these scene. Start going in shows where a local band is performing and we are sure you’ll experience what cannot be explained in just words. Stay happy Stay Metalhead

Jai Metal \m/