Bacardi NH7 Weekender returns to Pune to celebrate their 10-year run with a surprising line-up. Known to be the ‘happiest’ music festival, the line-up announcement did not leave fans happy as they expected more big names to show up for the milestone edition. Excitement was stirred for international headliners such as Australian singer-songwriter Nick Murphy, formerly known as Chet Faker, and Swedish progressive metal band Opeth.
Dreamville Records, established by Grammy-nominated artist J Cole will present a rapper Cozz and hip-hop duo Earthgang. From London, there will be all new raw live band called PENGshui, and afrobeat innovators called Kokoroko.
Among Indian headliners there is Raja Kumari, who performed at the festival last year as well, Hariharan bringing his Soul India project to the stage, Padmashree Ustad Puran Chand Wadaliji and Lakhwinder Wadali as the Wadalis, and the Mumbai-based metal band Bhayanak Maut.
You can also catch a number of rappers such as Enkore, Kaam Bhari, Brodha V, Spitfire, and the Gully Gang Collective.
The festival also features a host of comedians like Biswa Kalyan Rath, BhaDiPa showcase, Kenny Sebastian, Varun Thakur, Urooj Ashfaq, Sumukhi Suresh, Neeti Palta and others.
While some fans are talking about how the festival has shifted focus from music to comedy, others feel that the event has become repetitive and organisers are hardly making an effort to live up to the expectations they built during their initial years.
While it could be that OML (Only Much Louder) is taking an easy way out and filling slots with the talent they manage, a more hopeful perspective would be to look at it as how the festival is going back to its roots to seek out fresh talent and giving them a platform.
