Colombo Music Festival

The Colombo Music Festival is due to kick off on August 25 and will host 62 bands ranging from local to international talent. The festival will take place at a range of venues all over Colombo, allowing audiences plenty of opportunities to come and view their favourite musicians perform. Below are two bands which will be featured at the event:

Chimes Of The 70’S

‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band was established in January, 2009 comprising a very young talented set-up and the main purpose of establishing this band was to revive the 70’s Sinhala Pop Music genre with their original compositions.
They have been in the music scene for more than three years and they have been able to achieve many goals with their outstanding performances. A unique feature of ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band is to have 10 year old Udesha Karunanayake, who happens to be the youngest drummer from Sri Lanka who is even capable of accompanying for commercial recordings. In addition to their original compositions, ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ got the opportunity to compose new songs for both professional  and upcoming artistes under the music directions of their leader Rukshan Karunanayake. Up to now, they have composed nearly 80 original songs based on various flavours of 70’s pop music style.  Also they have their own fully equipped recording studio named ‘Studio Udeshan’ at Gampaha. ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band occupies a very wide repertoire of songs in Sinhala, Tamil and English languages. The band is very popular for performing cover instrumental music such as ‘Shadows’, ‘Ventures’, etc. Also ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band presented very successful gigs and some of them are ‘Immoral Hits – Just For You’, ‘Haththewe Gee Nadaya’, etc.
The maiden music album of ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ titled ‘Piyaneni’ was released in last July under M Entertainment along with its maiden music video titled ‘Mobile Phone’. In this album, it featured an original English song of the band titled ‘Dreams to Follow’, where world renowned bassist Hussain Jiffry joined hands with ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ to play bass for this song. ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band was featured on several TV & Radio programmes and to name a few are; ‘Sunday Spice’, ‘Rise & Shine’ (Channel Eye), Shanidha Ayubowan, ‘Adaraneeya Yauwanaya’ (Rupavahini), Wenasa (ITN), Music Factory (Derana TV), Hello  Sri Lanka (Swarnavahini), etc.
Since the established of the band, they have received media exposure from all the national newspapers in the country and their originals songs and videos are available all over the internet. Some of the songs of ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ have been published in fabulous web music portals like Amazon,
CDBABY etc. The main attempt of ‘Chimes of The 70’s’ band is to bring a new dimension to the Sri Lankan music by reviving the melodious sound of the yesteryear through their original compositions.
Line Up :

Rukshan Karunanayake
(Leader/Lead Guitarist/ Composer/    Music Director / Audio Engineer)

Thejan Hansaka  – (Vocalist)

Amanda Perera – (Female Vocalist)

Dinithi Samangi – (Female Vocalist)

Sugath Asanka   – (Keyboardist/Pianist)

Chaminda Pushpakumara -  (Drummer)
Udesha Karunanayake -    (Drummer)

Chmara Jayaratne    - (Saxophonist)

Rajmal Ariyapperuma -  (Rhythm Guitarist)

Maniesh Maduranga –    (Keyboardist / Pianist)

Dhammika Prasad -     (Bass Guitarist)

Not Another Metal Band

Literally formed on the beaches of Mount Lavinia by a bunch of friends who wanted to make an impact in the music scene in Sri Lanka, ‘N.A.M.B’ (Not Another Metal Band) was born. The band made their debut at the ‘Jingy Bingy Show’ organized by Wagon Park. Thereafter N.A.M.B started gaining quite a large and loyal fan base by playing at various events and concerts over the years. To name a few, the band has performed at the once extremely popular nightclub, Onyx (now known as Mojo), Sky Lounge (now known as Mirror Lounge) and Clancy’s.  They have also had a regular slot on Rockapalooza usually held at Aphrodisiac, and 7 Degrees North (located at Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel, Colombo).
N.A.M.B have gone through a few changes over the years and the current line-up reads:
Gyles Dharmaratne – Vocals
Indika Sirisena – Guitars
Nishan de Silva Wijeyeratne – Bass Guitar
Shawinda Nelson – Drums & Percussions The cardinal rule for the band is to; ‘surprise and entertain the crowd at-all-times’. Their music is as unique as their personalities. From House to Reggae, RnB, Rock and even Retro; what these fantastic four make is an incredibly refreshing infusion from the best genres performed using various different instruments (such as the ukulele, congos and bongos), and guaranteed to wake you up!