Above the below
By Summerblast Part 1

The 26th of June of this year will certainly be a day to be remembered by the hordes of underground music fans. Why? Because that is the day the biggest and probably one of the best concerts ever, took place. Organized by team of Altermetal.com, the show took place at the All Community Club (ACC), one of the top venues in Bangladesh.

The concert featured bands such as "The Untitled Band", "Bivishika", "Reborn", "Nemesis", "Stentorian", "dNA", "Arbovirus", Fulbanu's Revenge", "Breach", and "Artcell", who all performed in that order.

"The Untitled Band", certainly seemed to be rising higher and higher with every concert they performed at. With Wamiq at vocals, Ashraf at back vocals and bass, Ziyan at guitars and Tushar at drums, this band made a smashing start to the concert with the song "Under the Bridge", and pumped up the excitement with "Hella good", "Sway", "Save tonight", "Sex and Candy", and "Don’t Speak".

Bivishika started with "Crawling", which the vocalist certainly did justice to. The team of Niloy (vocals), Aleef (guitars), Shujoy (guitars), Rouddur (Bass), and Nabil (Drums), clearly rocked the house with their songs "Oparey", "Mohakal", and "Bhobishot". They received tumultuous applause and cheers from the crowd, heightened even more when they performed toxicity.

Next up were one of the more famous bands, Reborn, with vocals Ali, drummer Turjo, and guitarists Chisti and Rintu. Their first song "Fuel", pretty much blew the fans away, followed closely by "Shobkichu", "Cochise", "One", "Kritodash", and "Sad but True". They had a great song list and the audience's loud cheers clearly stated how much they enjoyed their performance.

After Reborn, we were joined by favourites Nemesis. With Zohad (Vocals), Maher and Nandito (Guitars), Yawar (Drums), Ratul (Bass), they provided us with the superb performance of the songs "Drive" and "Set it off" and their own songs "Gone", "New day" and "Obocheton". The crowd loved it, and made every effort to let them know.

Stentorian lived up to their name and their aim to play loud music, by playing three of their own songs, "Onek Bhoy", "Proti muhurte" and "Odhrisho Juddho". They also did "Voices" and got an equally loud response from the crowd. They had a slightly changed lineup for this performance, with Tanvir replacing our favourite Torsha, as vocals, Shams at bass, Tutul and James at guitars and Rafiul at drums. Maybe not yet as good as Torsha, but the new vocal was quite a big hit, as was reflected by the many people head banging away at the front of the stage. If Stentorian's music caused chaos, then dNA wreaked havoc! Their very entrance was greeted with screams of "dNA!" and various other forms of cheering. With Imtiaz (vocals), Saif and Shishir (guitars), Ashfaque (Drums), Opu (bass) and keyboardist Francis as guest, they started off with "In the End". Their song list was certainly an "altermetal" list, as it comprised of "Wicker man" and "One step closer" along with their own song "Shopno" and previously mentioned Linkin Park song.

Another amazing performance was given by none other than Arbovirus. Arbovirus had Shuvo at vocals, Suharto and Ranjan at guitars, Jishan at bass and Tanim at drums. Instead of their typical Soad/Disturbed numbers, they did Blur, Smells like Teen spirit and a few of their own numbers. They were awesome.

Fulbanu's Revenge (FBR) which had Sakib as vocals, Ashfaque as drummer, Farhan as guitarist and Daniel as Bassist, came next. As another prominent favourite, they brought the house down with "Megalomaniac", "Pardon Me", "Medley", "Ariels" and their own song "Tarpor" and "Bhul". It was definitely an awesome performance!

One of the best bands to perform that night Breach, with Ashraf (vocals), Omair and Onaisee (guitars), Micah (Bass), and Nafi (Drums), were simply the best in their performance of the three English songs which rocked the crowd. They ended with "Shada", their song from Aguntuk 2.

However, THE performance of the night, and the most loved, Artcell came on stage to give a stunning and electrifying performance of the songs "Mukhosh", "Onno Shomoy", "Rahur Grash", "Poth Chola", "Chile Kothar Shepai", and a song from their new album. They had their original lineup of Lincoln (vocals), Ershad (guitars), Shaju (drums) and Cezanne (bass).

The concert was a huge success, and the pandemonium which took place inside the club, clearly stated the immense amount of fun everyone had. Kudos to the staff of Altermetal.com. Thanks to you people, we all had a great time!

[Note: Visit www.altermetal.com for more points of view on the concert]
By Rohini Alamgir

Ah, the days of our lives…

No I'm not talking about the soap, so don't go all eewy on me. I'm talking of different days in the year like Valentines Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving Day, etc, etc. It seems like at least five days in a month are dedicated to something or the other. Doesn't it make you wonder who came up with these days, why they came up with them, and who gave them the authority to declare them as such? I mean after all, when these "day-declarers" were doing their declaring I'm sure they weren't aware of how much they were helping Hallmark, Paper Rose and their likes in making money.

It's amazing how in America they have a day declared for most things down to Flag Day. Next thing you know they'll have a Drinking Day (oh no, they have St. Patrick's Day for that) or maybe even a day for the armed (oh wait a minute, they do, Armed Forces Day!)…oh ok I admit I'm running out of choices! But doesn't that prove my point? I remember my Anthropology Professor (God Bless his witty mind) who was so fed up with such things that one day in class he told us all with a smirk that in his opinion all these days (religious, secular, and whatever else there may be) should be declared national holidays. At that point in the semester I whole-heartedly agreed.

Jokes aside, it's not surprising to see Bangladesh getting caught up in this day-hype. While it's not as bad as America, card shops are still making money. But it makes me stop and wonder why we need a designated day to show our brimming affections for our parents or why we need a designated day to make friends? Isn't every day an opportunity waiting to be taken (oh gosh I sound like those New American Dreamers I was studying about in Family Studies!)? Anyway, before I get labelled as a hypocrite I want to confess that I too give my Mom a card and gift on Mother's Day but as of recent years I'm cutting back on everything and hopefully by the time I'm legally considered to be an adult I'll be free from it all.

Holidays like Eid, Christmas, Poojas, etc are fine for such give and take, but for the rest of the year isn't it enough to show your love and appreciation to people on a general level rather than waiting for some day to come along so that you can do it. Think about it. In the meanwhile if there's no other day marked on your calendar then, America's independence Day in coming along…might as well take the opportunity and celebrate that!

By Riyana