Bacardi NH7 Weekender

Bacardi NH7 Weekender, or NH7 as it’s popularly known, is arguably India’s largest and most-loved multi-genre indie music festival. Since 2017, it has also run an extremely popular stage for stand-up comedy. Staged in Pune from 2010 and in the state of Meghalaya since 2015 between October and December, NH7 occasionally travels to other cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Independent music in genres such as electronic, hip-hop and rock makes up most of the line-up. Often, there’s a bit of Bollywood thrown in. The line-ups are a mix of established and emerging Indian and international music stars.

Asian Dub Foundation, Cigarettes After Sex, FKJ, Imogen Heap, Joe Satriani and Mark Ronson are among the past international headliners. Others include Opeth, Seun Kuti, Simian Mobile Disco, Steven Wilson, Steve Vai and The Vaccines. Amit Trivedi, A. R. Rahman, Nucleya and Shankar Mahadevan are a few of the Indian artists to have closed the event. A virtual edition, during which viewers could switch between stages, was streamed in 2020.

The festival returned in an in-person format to Pune in March 2022. On the bill were such Indian indie favourites as Ankur Tewari, Lifafa, Prateek Kuhad, Raja Kumari, Ritviz, The Yellow Diary and When Chai Met Toast. Mini “takeover” versions were staged in Jaipur, Hyderabad, Goa, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kolkata, Mumbai and Shillong.

It was back for a second 2022 instalment in November, featuring international acts such as alternative folk group The Lumineers (who headlined virtually in 2020), jazz-pop fusion trio Dirty Loops, rappers JID and Pav4n, rock band Tiny Fingers as well as dozens of Indian artists.

They included hip-hoppers Adi, Hanumankind, Kr$na, MC Altaf, Meba Ofilia, Rawal x Bharg, Reble, Sez and THE MVMNT, Wild Wild Women and Yashraj; rock and metal bands Bloodywood, Fox in the Garden, Gutslit, Kraken, Pacifist, The F16s, The Down Troddence, Trees for Toothpicks and VelvetMeetsATimeTraveller; and jazz-fusion outfits Many Roots Ensemble and The Darshan Doshi Trio. The pop purveyors and singer-songwriters who performed include Anumita Nadesan, Anuv Jain, Easy Wanderlings, Gouri and Aksha, Jhalli, Kamakshi Khanna, Karshni, Parekh & Singh, Peekay, Raman Negi, Rudy Mukta, Saachi, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Shashwat Bulusu, Tejas and Utsavi Jha.

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