A musical cruise in the Chaliyar

The purpose is great. But often for great purposes, what matters is the medium. The Chaliyar River Challenge 2017 has been going on for the past two years, as a paddling event to create awareness on dumping waste on our waters. This year – the third year of the challenge – the organisers decided to bring in a medium that will reach out to more people, more loudly. Music.

Veterans in the independent music scene – Avial – will join young band When Chai Met Toast and the Bengaluru-based Parvaaz for the music fest that will be held at the Malabar Marina Convention Centre on Sunday, September 24. That is the final day of the kayaking event.

The Chaliyar River Competition is being held as a three-day camp by the Clean Rivers Initiative, in association with Jellyfish Watersports, based in Kozhikode. Participants will sail through the Chaliyar, cleaning the river as they do and end their kayaking in Beypore. That’s when the music begins.

Avial, with its single album released nine years ago, has been the favourites of music lovers and aspirants in the state ever since they began as ‘Jigsaw Puzzle’ years ago. Their songs which came as tracks in films like Salt and Pepper and Second Show also came to be much adored. Things took a turn when vocalist Anandraj Benjamin Paul left and turntablist Tony John took over. It is now him, with the much-adored guitarist and composer Rex Vijayan, bassist Binny Isaac and drummer Midhun Puthanveetil.

If Avial’s music is all Malayalam rock, When Chai Met Toast has English, Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi. Their acoustic setup has vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar singing and talking to his audience between every few songs, visibly too young guitarist Achyuth Jaigopal, joined by Palee Francis on the keyboard and Pai Salesh on the drums. As they have declared in their band profile, they take inspiration from the lighter side of life and create happy songs. Joy of Little Things came out as an EP last year with these happy songs.

And then there is Parvaaz. The Bengaluru-based band comprising Khalid Ahamed on the vocals and Mir Kashif Iqbal on the guitar, with their Kashmiri and Urdu rich songs in rock. There is also Fidel D'souza the bassist and Sachin Banandur the drummer.

The music begins at 5 pm.