Here’s what my experience was like running a punk show with my band in Kochi
We initially just wanted to play our songs to a certain audience.
We were looking for places where Thiriv Theory can perform, but finding a space for an original punk band wasn't easy at all.
All mfer want existing crowd, clean and more predictable sounds, which we don't fuck with.
Cos of that, we had a fear that maybe our sound won't work in Kochi, cos I don't think Kochi has ever seen a proper punk scene in music.
So instead of waiting for someone else to get us a stage, we decided to build our own one, which felt far better cos I didn't wanna make just a music show, I wanted to show our art.
I wanted to bring together the things that already existed around me. Music, visual art, graffiti, independent artists and people who wanted somewhere to experiment without being judged.
That became the idea behind the Thiriv Theory Fest.
In Kochi, it's been a while (or maybe never happened before) that a punk scene has happened.
There wasn't a large production behind it, mostly us bandmates and a few people to help with, yet people scammed us in between. Well, it is what it is.
The result and the post production was chaotic af.
DIY and imperfect, but that's exactly what we're looking for. Only one question: would people take it or not?
The goal was to make the audience feel like they were contributing to it as well, rather than just watching the show.
MUSIC
The music was centered around our originals rather than just covers. That was also a questionable point from our side cos no one knows any of the songs.
Nobody even knew Thiriv Theory.
We performed our own Malayalam punk-rock songs.
AUDIENCE
Around 60 to 70 people showed up.
Getting those people there was the hardest part. We struggled heavily to sell the tickets.
And there were a lot of moments where we felt all the work might not translate to the audience.
But the people who came stayed. They were headbanging the whole time.
I personally had a lot of loss in money, shit tone. But every single penny, worth it. They stayed until the very end.
By the end, things got out of hand. It was more than we expected. People crowded around the stage.
None of it went smooth at all. Everybody wanted to bite a piece of Thiriv Theory's ass. We didn't even have much of an ass to bite for.
Still, people scammed us, Union of Mattancheri made a scene when we were unloading our things.
Financially, we took significant loss putting the effort together.
Something changed immediately after the show.
People were screaming our songs after, from outside.
And our social media, which started from 0, eventually started growing just by one night.
A lot of people who weren't even there at the show started texting us just by seeing the video clips.
More importantly, a team had already approached us and booked Thiriv Theory right after.