The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Keep your weekend free for Freedom Jam

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Tuesday, Aug 10, 2010
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Keep your weekend free for Freedom Jam

Staff Reporter

Bangalore's unique music festival is back

BANGALORE: It is that time of the year again. The three-day Freedom Jam – Free Music Festival 2010, featuring different styles of music at different venues around the city, begins on August 13.

This unique festival, where artistes perform for free, celebrates the country's independence with live music performances. A press release said Freedom Jam, which took off in 1996 in Bangalore, now rocks Puducherry and Chennai also.

Multiple venues

The idea of multiple venues offering various styles helps take the music to the people, rather than make them spend hours in traffic trying to reach one given performance location. By having different genres at different venues on different dates, the audience can choose their favourite style of music and enjoy themselves in their own comfort zone.

Musically, the emphasis is not only on original compositions like earlier years but also on music in regional Indian languages; a conscious shift from predominantly “English” music.

63 musical acts

In this 63rd year of Independence, Freedom Jam will feature performances by at least 63 musical acts.

Sanskrit pop band Maye, Hindi rock band Vinapra, Carnatic rock group Agam, songwriter John Daniel, fusion group Infinite Spirit, hip-hoppers Low Rhyderz as well as many of the known names from the Bangalore music scene such as Unknown Steve, Ram Nagraj, Alan Rego and so on are some of the performers participating in this edition of Freedom Jam.

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