The Gig Week: Let indie music roll, all week long

Here’s a chance to rock to indie music for seven glorious days, with The Gig Week. The independent music festival kicks off with its Mumbai edition from November 3-11 and then heads to its home ground, Delhi, in December before reaching Bengaluru in January. The festival promises to celebrate all possible genres at bars, clubs and gig venues across the city. The travelling  festival will showcase on each weeknight, artistes such as Siddharth Basrur, Tajdar Junaid, Second Sight, Simetri, Tejas, Burudu, GAD, Soulmate, The Family Cheese, Aditi Ramesh, Dhruv Vishvanath, Nanok, Cowboy & the Sailor Man, and FuzzCulture.

Thanking his mentors

Amit Mishra’s film songs, so far, reflect his versatility. While he has sung a Sufi rock song Bulleya (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil), he also has a slow track Meer-e-Karwan in Lucknow Central and the fast-paced Suno Ganpati Bappa Morya in Judwaa 2 to his credit. What does he attribute the varied range to? “It’s my time as a beginner with mentors like Prashant Singh, Chirantan Bhatt, Sajid-Wajid, and Mithoon, who have always given me the kind of time I’ve needed to get a song right.” His composers would give him four odd hours to record a song, he says, “It used to get frustrating when the song wouldn’t be approved and released but I have the satisfaction that a composer gave me those hours to sing in front of the microphone and groomed me as a singer. Singing at home and in a studio is completely different.”

Amit has trained himself as a ‘music director’s singer’. “They call me and ask me to sing a song in a particular way and I just deliver,” he says. The singer’s latest release was Tanhaiyaan (Aksar 2) where he has teamed up with music director Mithoon. “When I sang Majboor Tu Bhi Kahin for Chirantan in 1920 — Evil Returns, Mithoon had really liked the song and said that he will have me sing one of his compositions but I had to wait for seven years for that dream to fulfill,” he says.