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rock songs and front man Buddhima De Mal is pure magic to watch, with a touch of Jim Morrison’s otherworldly presence to him.
But the band is unusual in Sri Lanka, where rock has now come to be synonymous with metal. One pioneering young ‘Sri metal’ band, Whirlwind, has been influenced by the ’70s in an entirely different way, espousing a whole philosophy with their latest album which they believe presents the Flower Power movement as a political farce and offers up the ideals in a more genuine way.
Starting out in 1995 as one of the first Sri Lankan death metal bands, venting the anger and frustration felt by many young people during the war when seeing violence and bloodshed became a twisted normality, they have since taken a more peaceful tack with their latest release entitled Peace Or Else.
A crusader in the spiritual power of quantum physics, front man Misha Wickramanayake, who helped set up Rock Company’s second incarnation, sees the mistakes of the ’60s and ’70s peace movement as if from a past life. “We are playing for a higher purpose. When I go on stage I feel like I have sung the songs in the past, I have sung them in the future… I’m connected to a lot of energies and it feels like meditation,” he said. “All this about protesting. We also had that idea when we were growing up, but looking at the world now, there’s no protesting that any man can do. It lies within yourself. You have to stand up for
“WE GOT MAD AND STARTED SCREAMING ON STAGE, AND THE AUDIENCE THREW ROCKS AT US. OVER NIGHT WE BECAME ‘THE DARK FORCE’.”
festival for instance, the plug was pulled on their set after only one and a half songs for being too raucous. “The organisers were in the ‘peace and love crowd’, and some old fuck cut us off,” he explained. “We got mad and started screaming on stage, and the audience threw rocks at us. Over night we became ‘The Dark Force’.”
Still rocking with the best of them, Abeysekera says things are looking up for original rock bands today.
Whilst The Wall Gang mostly set up roots abroad, failing to show up for a reunion gig in 2003, spirited Sri Lankan youth are still heavily influenced by the iconic era at home and abroad. And although the ailing Rock Company disbanded recently for the second time amid angry feuds, there are calls for
22 another revival.
For lead guitarist of classic blues-rock band Wagon Park, Milinda Bathuvanthudave, who grew up in Colombo listening to his dad’s Doors and Rolling Stones records, the music of the ’60s and ’70s remains of unparalleled quality: “The music that came out of that era was everything to us. The freedom, the lyrics, the melodies… [for musicians of that era] everything had a meaning and they didn’t care what other people thought about them, they expressed themselves how they wanted to.”
But Wagon Park is no cover band. With lyrics in English, Sinhala and even Maldivian, inspired by their bassist who is from The Maldives, the band write their own Baila-spiced blues and folk
Trance the night away: Wagon Park’s Mohammmed Firaz catches fire
what you believe in but that doesn’t mean you stand half naked in front of some politician’s house with a sign – you’re wasting your time.”
For Wickramanayake, rock music is one of the only vessels loud enough and capable of provoking change: “I smash them on the face, kick them up the arse and say ‘Wake up, motherfuckers’”.
Although deep factions remain in the rock world in Sri Lanka, Whirlwind is not alone on its journey. With other bands such as psychedelic grunge band Paranoid Earthling and metal band Stigmata also making tracks, it is hoped that movements for change in Sri Lanka’s developing music industry as well as in society are heading for a spectacular crescendo.
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