Rock with Hoobastank

SHILLONG, JUNE 18: Internationally acclaimed band ‘Hoobastank’ will arrive in India on the June 27 for their first ever show in the country.

The reason that this international band will be playing in Shillong is to celebrate the 6th anniversary celebration of the leading magazine from the Northeast region, TNT-The Northeast Today.

Head of the Royal House of Tripura and also the editor in chief of the magazine Pradyot Bikram Deb Barma emphasized that ‘since TNT owes a lot to its readership for making it where it is today, the magazine thought that the celebration should be one big party for all of those who believed in “us’.

Hoobastank which is perhaps one of the biggest contemporary bands to come to the region in recent years also are extremely excited, Doug Robb the lead vocalist of the band says, ‘We have heard that in this part (Shillong) of India, rock is HUGE so we are extremely happy that we are starting our journey into India from the Mecca of Rock n Roll’.

With Tickets hitting the market and that too at just Rs 500 there has been a frenzy for ticket sales. Gareth Lyngwa, one of the organisers and a person behind some of the biggest shows in the region like Firehouse and Whitelion says that the genuine fans are the ones who came to our minds first hence the pricing of the tickets were at just Rs 500, adding further that this is more of a celebration rather than just a mere concert. Rajoo Sharma, the managing editor of TNT and a senior journalist from Northeast agrees with this and adds further that a celebration of our sixth anniversary was our main purpose and we have put the music lover’s as our priority and not for any commercial gains.

Hoobastank which has numerous hits including a few which were nominated for Grammy and American Music awards are an extremely popular brands with most of the youth in the region.’We consciously chose a ‘Fresh Band’ rather than some of the other acts which have come in the previous years’ says Sumita Jana, the director of TNT Events adding that there were a lot of queries to TNT events why northeast was home to just ‘older’ musicians and not modern rock bands.

Whatever the ‘reason’ but one thing is sure that this concert is going to be one of the biggest concert in the northeast and perhaps India in the recent years.’ We are concerned that we may not get hold of tickets’ says Imti Jamir , an avid Hoobastank fan , who is worried as the JN Stadium (which hosted bands like Firehouse, MLTR and Scorpions) is not big enough since the tickets for earlier shows were all sold out as soon as it hit the market.

Similar views are echoed by Andrew Marwein, a college student who is coming back earlier than expected from Bangalore for his summer holidays, just for the concert. ‘I have told my friends to pick up the tickets now because we think there may not be any left on the last day at the venue’ 

 Hoobastank has many hit to its credit namely ‘The Reason,First of Me,Crawling in the Dark, The Letter, If Only and Magnolia ( which is dedicated to Doug Roub’s daughter) and have ruled the billboard charts in recent years. The band has also added that they are aware that Northeast is ‘Quite’ different from the rest of the country and they would like to soak in as much of the culture as possible. ‘We love travelling and meeting people and experiencing newer cultures as these add to our personal growth as well as the band’s’ they say emphatically.

 So come 29th June Hoobastank might perhaps change the music trend in Shillong by ensuring that newer and bigger contemporary bands make way to the entire Northeast .And ‘the reason this time are the genuine music Fans’ .-By Our Reporter