Close to two decades ago, a group of young rock music aficionados in the capital city got together to organise a rock and metal festival at the VJT Hall (now Ayyankali Hall) in Palayam. Titled ‘Moshpit’, the festival, which spanned over half a day, witnessed the coming together of ten bands from across the country performing to a packed audience. It was one of the rare rock festivals in the city, which sees only sporadic bursts of activity in the independent music scene, which is hard to sustain.
Now another generation of rock musicians and music fans are uniting to organise a music festival at the same venue on Sunday (April 12, 2026) to host metal bands from various States. Titled ‘K\ala/pam - Music Concert for Peace’ and organised by the collective ‘Humans of World’ (HOW), the festival goes beyond the usual objective of providing a platform for independent bands. The one reason that spurred them to organise a festival was the ongoing war in West Asia, which made them wish to do something to spread an anti-war message.
“Many of our friends live in fear in West Asian nations. When we interact with them, they talk of the plight of living under constant fear. Just like them, innocent people from various countries are caught amid death and destruction caused by imperialist forces. We thought that the only way to take our message against war was through our music. The bands which are featured in the festival also have songs written around such themes,” says Devan, one of the organisers of the festival.
