Whatever!

By Imaad Majeed - Photos by Pranil Abeysinghe

Karmic Sulphur opened the show with some explosive original material. Thushara Kulatunga’s vocals are angst-ridden, fueling the fire as the band pummels through their song “No Potential”.
“You call that hate?” screams Thushara as the crowd raise their fists to the air, horns up in salute to the music. The audience of 150 soon flocked into the hall as Karmic Sulphur moved into cover song territory, taking on Rage Against The Machine’s “Freedom.” With much influence of Zach De La Rocha’s spitting rhymes, you could hear Thushara voice his frustrations with the chant “Freedom! Yeah!”
Women’s International Hall, the venue for the night, has a tendency to echo, giving the bass guitar a sense of wobblyness as it bounces around the room. This went well however with their instrumental piece where bassist Arosha Hettiarachchi sends his guitar through an effects pedal to achieve sounds you would expect in electronic dance music. Thushara joins in with the madness on another effects unit creating a tweet, tweet sound. The attitude is playful, a contrast to the usual.
The jam went on for about ten minutes or so, allowing the crowd to walk around and buy refreshments.
A homage was paid to the late Bob Marley, a rather unusual occurence for a rock band to play a reggae song. They finished off with their originals “Piece of Machine” and “Thriloka Vijaya”, a song about the bringer of balance.
Wagon Park then followed, with their own blend of classic rock, blues and Sri Lankan colloquialisms. With their fast-paced numbers “What I Want”, they had the crowd jumping, picking up the energy before they “Hit The Floor.” Milo Batu, lead guitarist, swept through arpeggios as though they were second-nature, his fingers flying across the fretboard. It is not uncommon to see him flying across the stage either.
Their bassist Freedom Fira kept to the pace, with insane runs and groovy numbers flowing along. There is an uncanny sense that this band is from a time other than now, as they take on classics like Lynyrds Skynyrd’s enigmatic “Free Bird.” Homage was then paid to Eric Clapton as they dove into Cream’s “White Room,” the leitmotif sounding as grand as it should.
The momentum built up as Paranoid Earthling, the four-piece from Kandy, burst into their adrenaline pumped brand of hard rock. The guitars and drums thrashed through their song “Proceed”, sounding anthemic to the eardrums.They played newer material, such as “Reign”, a song possibly referring to a dictatorship or perhaps nepotism. There is a message behind their music: it is not all noise and aggression.
Mirshad Buckman speaks out about society, about the government, about freedom, as the audience listens to his every word. It is at this point that the concept makes sense, it is what every band that night represented. An attitude of whatever goes, taking one’s own reins and liberating oneself from social conformity. As has become somewhat a tradition, they closed the show with their song “Rock N’ Roll Is My Anarchy,” with the crowd shouting along the chorus   “I am me, I do as I please. Rock and roll is my anarchy!”