Arena acts such as Iron Maiden and Joe Satriani alongside festival favourites such as Tegan & Sara have all shot videos in India, to document some of the madness for their concert DVDs. This month, The Prodigy who will perform in India, plan to take home some footage for a viral video. Lalitha Suhasini finds out why Indian audiences make for a livewire tour film

AS much as 25 year-old foreign exchange trader Sriram Lakshminarayan would like to believe that he isn't your typical metalhead, he is. He may have worn a Pink Floyd tee shirt to the show, but the black banner that read 'Iron Maiden is my religion,' said it all. "If it's a band I love, I'm right up there by the barricades," he admits. And that's exactly where he was when Iron Maiden performed in Mumbai in 2008, making it to one of the opening shots of the concert film Iron Maiden: Flight 666, that released last year. Alexander Milas, editor, Metal Hammer magazine, UK's largest-selling music magazine has been quoted saying that he realised how India was an untapped goldmine for the metal music industry abroad after he watched Iron Maiden: Flight 666 shot by Sam Dunn and Scott McFayden.


Keith Flint of The Prodigy loves crowd-diving; catch him in action at the
Invasion Festival in Delhi and Bengaluru in January PIC/GETTY IMAGES


Fans at the Iron Maiden concert at Palace Grounds in Bengaluru in
2008. PIC/ Satish Badiger

The West has just woken up to the fact that there are millions like Lakshminarayanan, who not only make a beeline at the ticket counter, but also a fantastic spectacle in a concert video. In 2005, when Joe Satriani was in Mumbai, he slipped in live footage from his concert into the Bonus Features section of Satriani Live that released in 2006. Yes, Lakshminarayanan was at this show too, but didn't make it to the video.

Indian audiences lend themselves to high-energy live videos because the energy and enthusiasm to watch big ticket bands has an explosive quality about it. Mumbai-based Babble Fish Productions' Director, Samira Kanwar, who has shot a number of festivals in India that hosted international acts including The Big Chill in Goa and the recent NH7 Weekender held in Pune, reasons that unlike fans in say, Europe, who have frequently watched big acts at festivals and are no longer awed by the experience, Indian audiences are eager to be at a concert.

"Audiences are experiencing everything for the first time. Including a variety of countries adds depth to the band's DVD," adds Kanwar, "The reason why it happened so recently is probably the Internet. Now bands have outlets to showcase their content, which in turn demands more content -- its span is more than just a DVD release. Mumford & Sons' Gentlemen of The Road Series is cinematically brilliant, but its distribution is primarily via the Internet." Besides, it's much easier to source economically-viable equipment in India compared to other exotic and popular tour destinations such as Japan.

For most, like Paul Dugdale, an award-winning music video director who has been working with UK electronica band The Prodigy since 2008, shooting fans, who have never seen the band live before, is the key to a great tour film. "I'm blown away by the honesty of their expressions when they watch a band like The Prodigy on stage, marvelling at the sheer energy and scale of the production," says Dugdale, in a telephonic interview from London. Dugdale will shoot a viral video at the Eristoff Invasion Festival coming up next month in India for the band's website. "I don't know whose idea it was, but I know that the band is extremely excited about coming to India. I'll be shooting at both venues (Bengaluru and Gurgaon). There will some footage from the run-up to the festival as well, but it's the essence of the culture in India that we want to capture, so we will include the real tapestry of the country as well." Dugdale adds that there are a couple of locations in mind that will help viewers feel the pulse of the country. "Wherever I go, I try to absorb the culture. It's not always about looking for the hardest, scariest parts although I do try to avoid the typical touristy spots and go into the dark ghettos. Even when we were in Serbia, we shot at parts of the city that were bombed during the war and look shelled even today."