Hardly a year old, already well known in Bangalore and probably the youngest bunch of rockers in the JRO 2005 bandwagon! The foursomes packed a punch and shocked the audience with their onslaught of growls and power-drenched guitars.
Perspective: What do you expect from a hard-core band that espouses their musical influences to outfits like Tourniquet, Mortification, Crimson Moonlight, Pantokrator, Antestor? Definitely nothing somber or anything remotely related to social consciousness! But hey, Whitenoiz advocates positive living and all their lyrics have a great message to approach life head-on with josh and deep values.  

Sam a.k.a ‘growl king’ had the persona of a rocket ready to take-off and his passion deluge of rap & growls, coupled with his incessant head shakes stirred up the crowd into a frenzy! This man meant business and it didn’t really matter that his ‘mob-gangsta’ jeans was a half-an-inch below the waist, because this dude was loud, in the face and ready to take on any self-respecting nu-metalist – if there is such a word, but you get the drift and on the guitars, was rubber-necked, ‘curls to hurl’ Moncy. Would someone buy him a pair of roller-blades? The axe-man had his act pretty tight and his tonal attack was like a truck coming at you at 120! Coupled with the tight, double bass work of ‘my snare can kill’ Samuel and Godson on the low end 4-string, the band wasted no time in pulverizing the crowd with songs like Open Hand (Project 86), In me (Kutless), Crush (Whitenoiz), Jekyll & Hyde (Petra), Deliver us from evil (Whitenoiz), Infected (Demon Hunter), In your face (Whitenoiz), God-mode (Whitenoiz)

This band has innards made of the right stuff that’s going to take them places and the hard-core fans at DAY 3 or JRO 2005 were more than warmed up by this sweat inducing, head-banging avalanche from Bangalore.

Their claim to fame – one of the only Chennai bands that plays only originals and who had the audacity to go ahead and self-produce a full-length album. LBG, are veterans at JRO and have presented their brand of stage eccentricities before. Their motto Love uz, hate uz: but we will not let you ignore uz … sums up the band and pretty soon had the audience eating out of the palms. And guess what, the crowd was singing along to the songs like ‘Better Than this’, ’Sweet China Lady’, ‘Scarawag’ and ofcourse their hit single ‘Money’.   

Arjun on vocals & bass really has a way of captivating the audience and his eyes speak more than his mouth. Aum on guitars is always a treat to hear with some great melodies and Praveen on lead vocals adds that unique LBG formula of ‘listen to the other octave’. Pleasant surprise was drum veteran Maynard who didn’t hold back flair and colour to the alternative journey that is LBG’s music. Avneet with his ‘I personally don’t need par cans’ glasses has a raw approach to his guitar playing that is ‘uncut’ and ‘take it or leave it’. LBG’s commitment to performance came out when Avneet had to start a song and his guitar was off – bang on came in Arjun with an interesting skating groove “Boom shaka dum thak, boom shaka laka dum thak…..” If you want to call it filler, think again because immeditately Arjun was putting in a bass line to it, Aum added some muted stuff and Avneet, invigorated with his freshly tuned strings, added a rhythm pattern to it and viola! The boys had a great song going for a while!
Talk about entertainment! The other songs LBG did from their album “This animal is called the Wallet” and some new material was Wrong, Revolution, Codiene, Breathe, Untitled, Scarawag, Shannigan, Sweet China Lady, Soma 

The lean mean boys from Gangtok, Sikkim were more than happy to be in Chennai despite their long drawn train travel. The classic rockers had their act pretty tight and Sonam on the guitars had his licks & screams all pronto for their ‘Iron Maiden’ dominated set list. Why Maiden, we made out setlist “just for Chennai!” because Chennai loves Maiden!! Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to agree with them as the crowd was ‘singing’ the guitar solos. Chennai rockers definitely have a zen for ‘Maiden’ and also make it their personal business to know every guitar solo, every Bruce Dickenson scream and lyric. A little unnerving if you ask me for any performer – but that Chennai for you – they will love you, hate you, but on the whole they will love you!  

Their own compositions were interesting too and what they did to the Deep Purple classic (Smoke on the water) was out of this world! They changed the riff to sound like Dire Strait’s ‘Money for Nothing’ and finally got back to the song, teasing the die-hard Purplers all through!Vishal the rhythm guitarist, was the enthu-pattaani on stage and felt his trip to Chennai was completely worth it, because he got to meet his guitar idol – our very own Christy Samuel of Moksha!! Guess what, Vishal made Christy autograph his brand new Paul Gibert Series Ibanez Guitar! Ahem! Ahem! Maybe it may be a good idea to grab and safe-keep an autograph from our good ole Chris while he is still our good ole Chris – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the man is revered all over India!

Note from the Editor: Don’t know why the author of this article is focused on rocket scientists, but Unwind is looking out for fresh writing talent! LISTEN TO THE VOICE INSIDE - IT MAYBE YOU!! Unless you’re bent on being a rocket scie……arggghh! 

Still Waters is known for their own composition “Rock to the Rescue” which has been featured on various rock compilation CD’s in the country. The band was tight, their classic rock genre was fresh and full of bite and they left the Chennai rockers high on adrenaline. 

Their list: 
Bring your daughter – Iron Maiden
Bark at the moon – Ozzy Osborne
Holy Smoke - Iron Maiden
Tornado of Souls – Megadeth
Tease Me, Please me – Scorpions
Rock to the Rescue – Still Waters
Run to the Hills – Iron Maiden
Smoke on the water – Deep Purple
Live a little – Still Waters
Burn – Deep Purple
Rock N Roll – Led Zeppellin
Hallowed be Thy Name – Iron Maiden