Are you a teenaged metal/ hard rock fan whose parents don’t allow you to go to night clubs? Are you a young music fan who doesn’t get much opportunity to check out the live Sri Lankan music scene because your parents veto the venue or late timings?
You can get a chance to indulge yourselves on April 5 at a highly convenient time 3-6pm, when Nemesis, the band that won the much coveted TNL Onstage competition in the band category launch their first ever concert at the KEG, Excel World.
Tickets are priced at Rs.400 and the first 50 members of the audience will get a free, promotional CD from Nemesis. Also the word from Nemesis is that a surorise awaits one lucky fan.
The concert is to be titled Chapter 1, as according to the band members, this is a new beginning for them. Nemesis is a Sri Lankan rock band formed in mid 2005, whose genre has evolved over the years into a mix of Blues, Alternative Rock/metal and Eastern Music. The only member from the old line up is Tharindu Mathew. Bassist Loshaarn Bandara, joined in 2006. He reminisced about the difficulties they had in finding a vocalist though they held several auditions. Then one day, Mihindu Ariyarathna walked in to audition for the role of rhythm guitarist. He was not even into metal music at the time. “We asked him if he could sing as well and he said, ‘yeah, a little bit but I am not that great’.”
‘We persuaded him to give it a try anyway and were absolutely blown away. And so we found both a vocalist and guitarist in Mihindu.’
The last person to join and thus complete the band was drummer Sithija Dilshan, who joined only a few days before the TNL Onstage competition and whose first gig with the band was thus at the competition.
The band will be playing a variety of songs for which they have now become famous, and also release some of their own original songs. They are currently working on an album and are planning to play 4-5 songs of their own. “Half Cocked,” which is one of their originals and which has seen 2500 hits on the band’s MySpace page (www.myspace.com/nemesistheband) will be relaunched at this concert.
According to Mathew, it is a song about how alcohol does not help one to get over a relationship. Some of the other originals that are to be released are Games and Statistic.
Games is about the art of manipulation and Statistic is about how people shouldn’t settle down and just be another statistic. They also plan to play some Sinhala songs in the hard rock and metal music genre.
Nemesis expects the audience to range from teenagers to young adults and so are not confining themselves to a particular genre.
Says Mathew, “We have evolved in our attitude. We know now that it doesn’t matter what the music style is as long as you put your heart and soul in it.
You shouldn’t really restrict yourself by trying to fit into a genre. To bring out what I wanted in “Half Cocked,” it had to sound bluesy, and if you take “Statistic,” that’s a more in your face, very raw, very heavy song, we want to give out the message –Get up. Don’t be another statistic.’
Two other bands, Wagon Park and Fuzz MechanX will also be performing at the gig. For more information, you can refer to the events page on Face Book under Chapter 1 or www.youtube.com/nemesisrockz or contact the band at nemesistheband@hotmail.com.
Co-Sponsors for the event would be Gonuts with Donuts, Sri Lanka’s only donuts café. The electronic media sponsors for the show are Art TV and TNL, while the print media sponsor is The Sunday Times.
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