How real is Indian reality television? The American Idol-isation of talent hunt format shows has meant that at least one judge on the ‘panel’ has to be a complete bad-ass mofo even if the complete bad-ass-ness seems completely out of place given the circumstance.

Day 1 of the Channel V Launchpad III elimination gigs (Feb 2) at the Blue Frog saw seven bands perform a cover, with only the ‘best’ five making it to the next elimination. Judging the proceedings were Bobby Talwar, Vishal Dadlani, Monica Dogra and Randolph Correia.

At least three of the judges seemed unconfortable and out of place.

The gig itself was well organised and on schedule but it was surprising to see the bands being asked to perform covers given how much each of the judges, and the show itself, claimed to support original music.

Head downstairs for the full review, pics and the Indiecision.

Faridkot was the first band on stage performing a cover of a song by the band Fuzon. The cover itself was a liberal rendition of the original that, though catchy and melodic, took away the crux of the original, leaving it pretty much soulless. The judges gave them flak for that but it was obvious that they would not get eliminated given that a) they have some street cred already, and b) the other regional language band Prachir (the next band) didn’t cut it with their cover.

Apparently, there was some controversy about Cassini’s Division as the band had earlier dropped out of the competition (because the judges were too harsh on them, from what we gather) but then decided to come back. Which meant they had the sympathy vote and though their cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ was average, they got much love from the judges.

Blank Noize’s cover was pretty unremarkable and it was obvious by the end of the gig that they and Prachir would be eliminated (which they were).

The surprise though came from Reverse Polarity whose screamo-metal cover of ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ was striking, and the best performance of the evening. They made no fuss about tearing the song apart and bulldozing this menacing monster of a roar in its place. Understandably, they got many props.

Workshop’s cover of ‘Like A Virgin’ was, expectedly, funny (“Like a virgin/Touched for the very first time/Like a virgin/When he’s done I’m next in line”) though the music was off, especially Sahil Makhija’s guitar.

The Circus was the last band on stage and their alt-grunge cover of ‘My Humps’ was energetic, but they didn’t do much with the song apart from adding a riff and some start-stop progressions.

The next eliminations are on the morning of Feb 5 where five of these bands will play two original songs each.

Indiecision: B-