The Debut Edition of Lollapalooza India Shone a Light on Indian Indie and Showcased Top-Notch International Acts

The first Asian edition of the iconic music festival spread across Mumbai's Mahalakshmi Race Course went off without any hiccups and served up some stellar tunes, glitzy visuals and more

- DAVID BRITTO

THE SIGHT OF AMERICAN rockers Jane's Addiction's frontman and founder of Lollapalooza in 1991, Perry Farrell, at Mumbai's Mahalakshmi Race Course walking around the festival grounds like a proud father after U.S. rock outfit The Strokes headlined day two of the festival was quite something to behold.

OFarrell, who produces Lollapalooza with C3 Presents, teamed up with promoters and entertainment platform BookMyShow to bring the traveling music festival to Asia for the first time on January 28th and 29th, 2023. Although the event received some backlash for its lineup on social media when it was announced last year, that sentiment wasn't felt on ground last month from the thousands of festival-goers who attended it.

For a city that is always facing a space problem, Mumbai's Mahalakshmi Race Course was quite the find by the organizers. The best way to get to the venue was by train and once we did arrive inside, the sheer magnitude and size of the area was massive. With four huge stages, quite a trek away from each other (there was plenty of walking involved over both days), attendees needed to plan ahead as to which acts they wanted to see perform at either the BUDX Stage, Walkers & Co Stage, NEXA Stage or the Perry's X Budweiser Beats Stage.

We arrived on day one of the festival just as Pune soul/easy-listening group Easy Wanderlings were finishing their set for the opening slot at the event at the NEXA Stage and just in time to see post-rockers Aswekeepsearching kick things off at the BUDX Stage. The group's set featured songs such as "Reminiscence," "Maybe There," "Chasing Light" and "Rooh," and included backup singers Zoe Siddharth, Urgen Yolmo and Meg D'Souza as well as two dancers who joined the band for their performance. At this point, there was a sizeable crowd at 2.30 pm, with folks braving the Mumbai heat to make the most of Lollapalooza.