Powerhouse progressive trio Silver Screen performs at INOX Unplugged. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

What would you do if you and your band had a chance to win either a Fender guitar — personally autographed by Farhan Akhtar — or a gig at Someplace Else? Rock on, right? That is exactly what six bands planned on at the finale of INOX Unplugged, at INOX, City Centre, on September 19. Two rounds of auditions threw up the finalists Departed, Cynosure, Pseudonym, Sixth Veda, The Penny Drops Band and Silver Screen, who battled for the winner’s crown last week. Judges for the final auditions included Rishi and Samidh of Hip Pocket, Virendra Marya, regional director (east), INOX Leisure Ltd, and P.P.K. Mitter, senior branch manager, wines, United Spirits Ltd.

First to play was Departed — with a sound “somewhere between classic and alternative rock” — who dished out crowd-pleasers like Yellow, Black Velvet and Zombie. Next up was t2 Rising Rockers The Penny Drops Band, which put up a good show with its cover of Underoath’s Reinventing Your Exit and original compositions Long Way To Go, Invisible Wounds and Winnie Cooper — the latter a fresh tune about a boy’s crush on a girl, “inspired” by Kevin Arnold’s crush on Winnie Cooper in the classic television series The Wonder Years.

Another bunch of t2 Rising Rockers, Pseudonym bagged the Fender Stratocaster guitar — signed by Farhan — for best original performance for its songs Ants In A Queue and Moonwalk.

early, the most powerful performance of the afternoon came from Silver Screen — which describes its sound as progressive — with its set-opener of Dokken’s Don’t Lie To Me making an instant impression. With originals I Believe In and Mortality, Silver Screen was the right fit for the trophy of INOX Unplugged.

Sixth Veda grabbed the first runners-up place with covers of Wolfmother’s Joker and The Thief and Lift by Poets Of The Fall. Cynosure emerged as the second runners-up, though its set-list seemed a little confused, with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising sharing space with Judas Priest’s Breaking The Law!

Malini Banerjee

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