Top 6 Culturally Forward Venues For Experiencing Live Music Across India

The essence of being culturally forward is not in being overly selective but in being experimental and these venues in India have proven that. From hosting artists belonging to eclectic genres of music to doing things their way, these venues are trying to keep the flame alive and doing a great job at it. These venues are focusing on creating unique experiences which cannot be found elsewhere in the country. From hosting exclusive international acts, comedy evenings, live gig nights, DJ Nights, and soo much more! 

Loudest.in partnered with Indian Music Diaries had them as key contributors for our digital publication. Akshay Kapoor, who runs Indian Music Diaries has compiled a list of go-to venues for experiencing high quality live entertainment every weekend! Trust us, we can count on our fingers, the no. of high-quality venues in India and these venues top the list!

Without further ado, diving straight into the list!

1. The Humming Tree, Bangalore

[caption id="attachment_1581" align="alignleft" width="200"] The Humming Tree Logo[/caption] The brainchild of Nikhil Barua from Bangalore, The Humming Tree is a live music and arts venues. Being a performance venue, it hosts bands/artists a couple of times a week and hosts documentary screenings, interactive sessions, comedy nights, karaoke evenings from time to time as well. Nikhil wanted to introduce a space for musicians, where he could choose music he liked, without being answerable to anyone so he went ahead and created one. The past few months have also seen The Humming Tree bring down quite a few international acts and have them tour the country. Lucy Rose, Mike Posner, Eagulls, Patrick Watson Band, Steven Wilson, Jose Ganzalez have all performed in Bangalore due to The Humming Tree team.  The Humming Tree plays a big role in promoting some of the newer music acts via multiple formats, such as open mic nights, UNSCENE by Bantering Ram ( Ramakrishnan Krishnan).

Lucy Rose, UK based musician, performing at The Humming Tree

Check out The Humming Tree's events schedule here

2. AntiSocial (Delhi/Bombay/Bangalore)

Founded by serial restaurateur Riyaaz Amlaani, Social Offline is a chain of easy drinking bars present across several locations in the country. Attached to some of these venues, are performances venues called AntiSocial, which are bare, stripped down versions of the bars with plenty of spaces for attendees to groove and mosh. AntiSocial often hosts metal gigs, part of the hand few venues in the country still catering to the genre. Being a wide open space, AntiSocial is capable of hosting gigs from each and every genre. You can catch Indian hip hop artists, homegrown electro producers to indie singer-songwriters, anything goes at AntiSocial as long as it is good music. 

Divine, Mumbai based Hip-Hop artist, performing at Khar Social

Check out their events schedule here Delhi- https://www.facebook.com/pg/antiSOCIALhkv/events/ Mumbai- https://www.facebook.com/pg/KharSocial/events/

3. The Piano Man Jazz Club, Delhi

Founded by Arjun Sagar Gupta, located in Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi. There are music venues and then there are serious music venues. The Piano Man Jazz Club is the latter. Having built quite a reputation in the Delhi music scene due to single-minded dedication to high-quality music, it hosts bands/artists each and every night with Sundays being dedicated to ‘Musician Mixers’ where anyone can come around and jam with other musicians on stage. Keeping their aim towards hosting as much jazz music as possible, The Piano Man Jazz Club does not shy away from hosting singer-songwriters/indie bands/western classical artists and the likes as well. Being a serious musician himself, the owner Arjun Sagar Gupta also has a peculiar request at each performance where he shuts down the food and bar service and requests the audience to put down their phones, keep silent and listen to the artist with undivided attention for one whole song.  

A glimpse of what goes on at The Piano Man Jazz Club

Check out their events schedule here

4. Blue Frog, Bangalore

Often credited with being one of the first few venues in the country that truly shown light on the underground scene in India, Blue Frog is still one of the best performance venues in the country. Located in 2 cities now (used to be one in Delhi and Mumbai too, unfortunately, they shut down a few years ago). Blue Frog hosts a wide variety of acts with the genre being no bar. The team behind Blue Frog has also been responsible for bringing various international bands/artists to India as well.

Jeff Loomis, of rock at Nevermore, performing at Blue Frog Bangalore.

Check out their events schedule here   Pune |  Bangalore-

5. Jamsteady, Kolkata

Jamsteady was founded by Nitish Arora, Founder Smoke Inc. You might think that a city like Kolkata with so much culture and history associated with music will have loads of music venues. It doesn’t. One of the venues that are creating ripples in the city is Jamsteady by Smoke Inc. But, Jamsteady is actually a venue that isn’t fixed to any particular location. It keeps on shifting base, promoting and hosting the best artists in and around the city as well as getting independent artists from other cities to perform in Kolkata. It has now expanded from being just live gigs to a platform for showcasing exciting musical content via videos, articles, collabs and a mega annual music festival called Jamsteady`s Big Sunday.  

Preying Mantis, Kolkata based electro act, performing at Jamsteady

Check out Jam Steady events schedule here

6. The High Spirits Cafe, Pune

This resto-bar based in Pune came into existence in the year 2006 through Khodu Irani’s vision of creating a space in Pune which was in contrast from the rest of the clubs that Pune was replete with. The indie party has not stopped since. This performance venue has given space to umpteen Pune/Mumbai based musicians as well as artists from all over the country. Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, D Cup and more have been happy to perform here. The outlet holds gigs a couple of nights in a week and has a busy events calendar.  

Reggae Rajahs, the famous reggae crew from Delhi, performing at the High Spirits Cafe

Check out The HIgh Spirits events schedule here

  Thanks to these venues, Indian Indoor Gig Scene is Rapidly Growing!