TRUE TALES THE ROAD: Edmonton metal band rocks India
“I don’t think it’s advertised that there’s a giant heavy metal fan base in India,” says John Simon Fallon, guitarist for The Order of Chaos, “but certainly the response we got was overwhelming. There was one concert with 15,000 people and every single one of them was going insane over us. I guess you could say the fan base is emerging.”
The Edmonton metal band played a couple of select college dates in India – the Spring Fest in Kharagpur in January, and the Alcheringa Festival in Guwahati, Assam in February. It was an odd, eclectic bill: “There was battle of the bands; regional acts, a sitar player from Israel, a heavy metal band, Bollywood performances,” says Fallon. “There were people I saw in the front row watching all the performances, going just as hard for us as they were for the Bollywood act. I’ve always been a fan of mixed bills. Gives us a chance to see what the other genres are doing. God forbid we enjoy it.”
There was even crowd surfing.
“There was crazy mosh pit. Our bass player (Barrett Klesko) put his bass down and decided to go crowd surfing, and he got away with it one time. The second time, the police came at him with the whacking sticks. Instead of shooting or tasering you, they have these bamboo poles and they just give you an authoritative whap. Then our bass player gave the cop his bass pick as a gift, and the cop just looked at him and let him go – and then he went back to crowd surfing. He did it three times at this one show.”
Security takes a dim view of crowd-surfing in India, Fallon reports, due to the population density.
“The population is so high over there they have to ensure that crowd control is a thing. Even on campus they were very strict on having security with us. Over here you might have maybe 10 people who recognize you after a show, and want an autograph. Over there that’s magnified until you have 200 people around you. It can be very overwhelming.”
Overall, “This was one of the most warm and welcoming, most engaged audiences I’ve ever performed for.”
As a bonus, upon their return to Canada they saw that their socials had blown up – and now have thousands of new fans in India. The people get it mainly from YouTube.
There was one noticeable and disturbing thing about playing in India, Fallon reports – seeing first-hand how rigid the caste system still is.
“There was a real separation of social classes,” he says. “Rich, and poor, right next to each other. When you’re born into it, it’s hard to get out of. You see extreme poverty on the street with a $200,000 Ferrari whizzing past. We saw a lot of young, rich people. But we were confined to the University, so didn’t get a true picture of the more upsetting aspects of life in India, the extreme poverty.”
During a few days off in Mumbai, some of the band members saw for themselves when they went on a “slum tour.” Yes, that’s a thing.
Fallon says, “As bad as we have it here on a day to day basis: the pipelines aren’t flowing and other issues with our economy, over there some people literally have nothing. But they all have their iPhones. It’s interesting. They saved every penny they ever got to get a smartphone. Even in the slum everyone had a smartphone.”
The Order of Chaos plays Friday with West of Hell: The Infidels Tour Canada 2019′ show at the Starlite Room’s Temple.
