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Local jazz talent The Lyres as well as bands from overseas Bootleg Browns share the stage to make music at Big Gig.

Music Fest in the Highlands

High up with the Shivaliks to bear witness, Landour, Mussoorie is soon going to be alive with a truly indie festival, with a wide variety of bands presenting an entire spectrum of music. (Check out the line-up here.) Big Gig Exclusive is in its third edition, and here’s some more dope on the quaint yet contemporary music that these bands will play for the benefit of this year’s attendees.

Run! It’s the Kid

The maverick indie-folk outfit Run! It’s the Kid are a part of the one-day music fest as well at Big Gig Mussoorie. The Rokeby Highlands in Mussoorie is exactly where you would picture this band playing whom count The Lumineers, Bombay Bicycle Club and Dry The River as some of their inspirations. The four-piece band comprises Bhairav Gupta, Danik Ghosh, Dhruv Bhola and Shantanu Pandit. Check out some of their original compositions here.

The Okies

Husband-wife duo Abe and Bethany Okie have a longstanding relationship with music. Abe was a church musician in Atlanta, GA, USA, where they belong to, and Bethany performed on musical theatre stages around the city. Their music draws from the glorious Southern history of America, and is steeped in that history, drawing musical memories from their childhood. A good mix of classic rock and folk music (the Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Neil Young variety) drew Abe to music, and more recently he’s immersed himself in indie artists like Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire apart from being a western classical music teacher at Woodstock School. Bethany began with Broadway tunes and jazz standards, but nearly everyone who heard her sing said, “That voice was meant to sing country music”. To see them perform live is to go through an aural journey of the history of American music, draw as they do from different traditions, their own music being attractive in its unpredictability with its self references coming out in different forms.

The Bootleg Browns

Blues band The Bootleg Browns have diverse musical styles and influences which come together to create a combination of blues based rock music with a hint of funk and a dash of soul. Driven by their united love for the blues, the band is heavily influenced by the sounds of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, CCR Deep Purple, Stevie Ray Vaughan and a host of other artists. The band members are  Andrew on the drums, Darab on bass, Ady on the vocals and rhythm guitar and Prateek on lead guitar.

The Lyres

Yet not out of school, these young prodigies of Mussoorie’s own Woodstock have a jazz combo, the choir consisting of vocals, bass, piano, guitar, drums, trumpet, trombone and saxophone, under the direction of Lindsay Boyd, Chris Rhatigan and JP Milligan. The jazz band are seasoned performers, having performed overseas as well as in the country.

To check out the whole line-up for the festival, click here. Passes available for Big Gig Exclusive at Rs. 1500. To book your tickets for Big Gig Exclusive, click here. Alternatively call Rokeby Manor at +91-135-2635604 / 05 / 06 for pre-booking your passes. For more information on the festival, visit their homepage here.

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