They can't be blacklisted

They can't be blacklisted

Blacklisted, the band from Chennai drew quite a crowd

Who are they? They're a band from Chennai who came with one mission— that is to get the audience tripping on their music. Blacklisted performed in Hyderabad after much ado. The band was supposed to perform in the café over six months ago. “We kept ditching this gig, almost each time we were supposed to come, one of us had exams or some meeting. After a long time, everything fell in place,” says Abhinav Krishnaswamy, guitarist or booby as he is popularly known as.

Starting out in the year 2008, Blacklisted have come a long way and have been creating an impression. The musicians are pretty famous across the rock circle for their antics! The band quintessentially started out as college band and saw many an artist come and go, Preetam Thapa used to sing for them and Ritwick used to play the bass. “Now we're pretty much fixed with Sriram T.T. on the bass and Samudra has been the vocalist.” say the members.

Niranjan Swaminathan or Ninju plays the drums like no other. Over the years, the band has won many competitions across the country, including the coveted Battle of the bands 2009 edition at Strawberry fields in NLSIU Bangalore. They are currently working on an album slated to be released in December 2011. They also participated in Campus Rock Idols held at Hyderabad.

Their music heavily draws from varied genres, “We're into Audioslave, Pearl Jam and the likes,” they say. Blacklisted bought the crowd with their unique sounding music and intelligent interpretations and covers of various songs.

The band gave quite a power-packed performance in the Hard Rock Cafe. The music had an eclectic mix of both blues and heavy rock. The venue was packed as the audiences swung their heads to Blacklisted's catchy music. Sriram and Ninju had a wonderful stage presence as they entertained the audience with their antics. They both kicked up quite a riot. Samudra Gupta, who currently works for Google in Hyderabad, proved to be excellent as he made use of the stage extremely well— edgy like Preetam Thapa, an ex band member known for his stage-diving antics! Abhinav worked the strings with ease. Their rock version of Justin Timberlake's Sexy Back really won the audience.

They also enthralled with a few covers from the American blue band, Black Keys. Blacklisted's USP is their fun quotient mixed with some intelligent music. Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend you ears to Blacklisted.