Hard Rock Cafe - unsung Hear of Independent Music in India

The schedule was pretty much fixed back then in the late 1990s. Live performances by The Bay from Wed to Sat at Marine Drive"s crowd puller Jazz, & at Juhu’s Razzberry Rhinoceros on Thursdays.

 

“Playing Music only for the sake of Food as payment was not an alien concept in those days,” says Tirthankar Poddar who insists everyone to call him Tublu in his rich baritone voice. He also paints the picture of independent musicians in those days: “Long haired teenagers in faded black T-shirts craved to perform just for the sake of their adrenaline rush. Their parents surely may have disapproved, but it had merely stoked their fire even more.”

 

 

Thankfully things changed in 2006, Jay Singh and Sanjay Mahtani launched India’s first Hard Rock Cafe or popularly known among today"s youth as HRC in Worli. “It was a giant leap for the independent music industry which was gaining importance gradually. To everyone"s surprise today Western rock found Home in a country ruled by Bollywood. Moreover, this time, the teenagers did not have to play music just for food or adrenaline you may call it,” says Tublu.

 

The first launch pad

Rolling Stone India’s executive editor Nirmika Singh, who was also a singer and songwriter once, says, “HRC is not just the first big chain to promote alternative music, it has also been the torchbearer and had launched more than a 100 Independent Artists Live in India.”

 

One of India"s First Cover band One Night Stand, which started playing for them back in 2007, one beautiful morning got a call to perform at HRC’s tribute night, Legends of Classic Rock. Remembering how the launch pad benefited the band one of the band"s members Padmanabhan NS says, “Our first performance for Hard Rock Cafe was an ode to metal. Since we played classic rock covers from the 60s and 80s, at least five - six people from the audience right away approached us for private shows. That is what made our day. Even High-spending 40-year-olds invited us to play at corporate shows. We grew with HRC and are thankful to them for .”

 

Within a year of its Mumbai launch, Hard Rock Cafe spread its wings to Bangalore, followed by Pune in 2008. HRC Hyderabad and Delhi opened in 2009. Soon Mumbai got its other Hard Rock Cafe in 2013. The following year, NCR got its second outlet in Gurgaon.

 

Eventually, HRC realised that Cover artists and songs were the perfect fit for a place representing classic rock. “It was a great marriage of Music with the concept we had while setting up HRC in India,” says metalhead Sahil Makhija. However, many feel it started on a wrong foot — asking Indian rock band Zero to do covers was not artistically friendly. “Thankfully it is a  far more nurturing environment these days with their property HRC Rising promoting Young Bands,” says Makhija, who doubles as programming lead for Hard Rock Cafe’s monthly Metal Nights.

 

Over the Years, their spectrum of Music and its genres has widened, observes Tublu. “While the primary focus still stays good rock music – be it cover or original – it is correct that we also have EDM Saturdays and monthly metal Sundays among other curated events to meet customers’ demands nowadays”.

 

HRC Andheri recently introduced monthly Bollywood Rock Nights for Fridays showcasing Artists Popular among TV and Bollywood circles. “We are not into the shallow, cheesy entertainment; it took us two years to pull out twenty-five good songs that we enjoy performing live given our classic rock roots,” recalled the 2Blue lead singer. “Luckily, the music of AR Rahman, Vishal Dadlani, Ram Sampath, and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy comes in handy both for us and for the audience in India,” he added.

 

Food friendly

 

One will agree that it"s never just the music on which HRC propelled so well. A year later Worli’s HRC was established, Blue Frog (BF) opened doors at Mathuradas Mills Compound. However, they did not realise the fact that that BF was about jazz, eclectic fusion and electronic. Speaking about BF, Makhija says, “Blue Frog was specifically designed for live music; Hard Rock is more F&B focused, with brighter lights.” HRC stuck to rock and indie, and we were told that the secret lies in understanding the current music scene and fostering the right set of music bands.

Many branches of HRC have to be shut down mercilessly since then, with competing restaurants also drawing in crowds with live performances and stand-up acts. So is the competition getting tougher? “I wear two hats—a businessman’s and a music aficionado. It has been ten active years in an industry where not many survive, not to mention especially in India. Competition helps us improve whereas opens up a lot of new avenues for musicians,” Jay smiles.

 

Future of Hard Rock Cafe

The 10th anniversary of HRC  was celebrated with a charity auction for Bret Lee Foundation. HRC plans to buy instruments for underprivileged kids with the collected money. Free-flowing spirits at hand, bidders opened their hearts and wallets for the needy. Within few minutes, Parikrama’s guitar was sold for a bid of Rs 28,000. Usha Uthup’s Kanjivaram saree and Microphone were sold for Rs 15,000 and Euphoria’s iconic Red Cap for Rs 15,000. Shankar Mahadevan’s harmonium got the highest bid of Rs 1.10 lakh, and the event ended with AR Rahman’s studio headphones and Sivamani’s drums, each fetching Rs 80,000.

 

Jay announces an HRC privilege card for musicians and indie music awards that they’ll host with Rolling Stone in February.

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