There’s a rock concert coming up on 21st April, at Boat, Imphal. Recycle and Boomarang are all set to ignite back the flame of rock.

Recycle is a newly formed band; the members of the band have been in the music circuit for long.

Boomarang is an Aizawl based band, whose sound has a blend of blues and hip hop with a taste of nu-age metal. They have performed at Great Indian Rock fest and The Hornbill Rock Contest.

The show will be opened by a Pena Ishei – Pena is an indigenous musical instrument made from a bamboo rod and the shell of a gourd or coconut. Recycle will then take the stage. After Recycle’s performance there will be a short talk on drug related issues with the youths in Manipur. This will be followed by the band from Mizoram – Boomarang.

A brief history of Recycle

Michael used to play the bass guitar with some Chennai IITians in a jazz and blues rock band called '7 sigma' at Hyderabad while he was working there as a software engineer. ‘7 Sigma’ used to play at various pubs and rock fest held in Hyderabad.

Last year Michael met old high school band mates Bode and Kiran, when he went home. Their band ‘Dark Ages’ was doing pretty well those days in early '90s.

One fine day, these three guys were talking about various kinds of music scenarios and their experiences outside Manipur. They went to lots of Rock Shows in Manipur but most of the shows were not up to their expectations.

The reasons being - same old song, same old genre of music, same old jarring sound system set up, no proper stage presentation and lack of professionalism, with some getting involved in drugs, which they really don't appreciate. Seeing the pathetic state, they preferred going to Hindustani Live Concert than Rock Concert at times.

The faithful ones who come to the show to hear and enjoy the music and appreciate the talents are discouraged, often making them not wanting to go for the concerts again; because these days in the concert it’s more of the youths and kids with their bodies and minds going *high* with tablets and drugs, pulling off their T-Shirts, jumping and dancing without much interest for the music.

To make rock music a decent genre of music to our society, these guys got together and 'Recycle' came into being - with a whole different and innovative mindset to spread an awareness to all the rock lovers that they don’t need to do drugs to play rock music, and that they don’t need to imitate exactly what their idols do. They want to change the mindset of the youngsters.

Back to the history, Kiran the guitarist was in Chandigarh and Delhi playing lots of music. At that point of time he was very interested in music that he bought a Kramer guitar, a Marshall Amp and a Zoom 505 Processor. But he couldn’t find the right team and he sold off all his equipments and started running his own business in Imphal.

Bode, who plays the guitar was in Bangalore for a long time, he used to play for a college band called 'Grapevine' and later with another local band called 'Mazarine'. He bought a Yamaha guitar and an AX 300G Korg processor. He also had to sell them off. He then started running an event management firm called 'Chumthang' which eventually is organising the 21st April show.

Bishwarjit is a very well known and established vocalist in Manipur who sings with great conviction and leaves no room for error. He used to play with a well known band called 'Illegals', where he played with Bode. He was also the vocalist of X-Cannibals. He's a good pal of Bode and eventually introduced Bode to the rest of Recycle.

Somo is a very talented drummer in Manipur, whom the band finds it a privilege to play with. They have never seen such a highly talented drummer who plays with such great punch, conviction, full of energy and interest. Very professional indeed!!! He used to play for a band called 'Birth n Death', has a Pearl drum kit with Paiste cymbal and a cowboy. Very punchy, excellent sound!!

Somo met Bode at a common friend’s wedding ceremony and started talking about music – ‘Hey what’s up? Playing music these days?’. Kind of all sort of music pep talk... then a last it was ' Let's play, Let's ROCK'.

And that's how they all came together to deliver quality and different music (mixing the elements of grunge, funk, new age metal and hard rock) to all the rock music lovers.

This is what Recycle has to say - “Just be yourself and come as you are to the place of ecstasy - our concert, if you really love music and if you are serious.’

Event managed by : CHUMTHANG
Event supported by : IMPROCK
Chumthang is an event management firm at Imphal.
www.improck.com is a site which many may not be aware of, it’s a site develop and maintain by some rock music lovers from Imphal. E-pao readers can pay a visit to their site.

AEROSMITH – WORLD TOUR 2007