American heavy metal rock band Queensryche captivated rock music lovers for more than 90 minutes during their debut performance in India on the closing day of 5-day ShiRock 2018 Festival at Bakshi ground in Ukhrul, on April 28 night.
ShiRock is an international rock music festival cum rock music competition for best bands in northeast held from April 24-28.
The Seattle based metal band took the stage around 9.30 pm with ‘Revolution calling’ from the 1988 album ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ as their opening track of the non-stop 90 minute show. The band’s former vocalist Geoff Tate and guitarist Michael Wilton penned the song.
With his high pitched scale vocal, the band’s vocalist Todd La Torre also belted out a good number of popular tracks such as, ‘Empire,’ ‘Queensryche,’ ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ ,’Breaking the silence,’ ‘Road to madness,’ etc from the record holder albums and EPs witnessed by more than 25,000 fans coming from various parts of the country.
“It took 38 hours to reach Manipur and it’s an honour for us to play here,” the front man and vocalist Torre announced minutes before rendering the band’s mind blowing tracks such as ‘Silent Lucidity’ and ‘Take hold of the Flame,’ during his maiden performance in India’s NE region, which is emerging as the most popular destination for international rock bands.
Even though the music loving audience lauded the amazing performance of the American band, some of the hard core Queensryche fans who drove down straight to the hill town along with 1000 plus vehicles to witness them expressed disappointment over the absence of guitar and drum solos by Michael Wilton and Casey Grillo.
Yes we enjoyed the wonderful show but we missed the guitar and drum solos by Michael and Casey, Ch Roshikanta, a fan from Imphal said.
Like him a good number of rock lovers from metropolitan cities including Kolkata and southern states of the country also turned up to watch the historic music concert played by the legendary musicians from the America.
ShiRock 2018 Festival was organized as part of Manipur Government sponsored Shirui Lily Festival (April 24-28), aimed to promote conservation of the endangered State flower Shirui Lily and also to promote young talented artistes.
Earlier another popular rock band also from US Steelheart enthralled the crowd of the day one of the ShiRock 2018 festival on April 24.
Mizoram’s Reverse Tragedy took the winner’s title with a cheque of Rs 10 lakhs in the ShiRock 2018 rock music competition among 20 rock bands of NE India. The first runner up title (with a cheque of Rs 5 lakh) went to Avora Records (Mizoram) and Ambush (Assam) while the second runner up title (with a cheque of Rs 2.5 lakh) to Dream Street(Manipur) and Jammers Graveyard (Assam).Popular choice award of the fest was bagged by Fame The Band of Meghalaya while theAlamle Herrang from Senapati(Manipur) was adjudged as winner of 2018 Tribal Euphony.