Staurday night Indian heavy metal band Bloodywood brought their Rakshak USA 2023 Tour to Pop’s in Sauget, IL. Along them on tour is Vended and Wargasm.

The New Dehli, India band’s music is a blend of Indian folk music and heavy metal, and the lyrics are sung in the English, Hindi and Punjab. The band got their start doing parody metal covers of pop songs and then started to catch the attention of music websites such as Loudwire and Metal Hammer. Band members include Jayant Bhadula on vocals/growls, Raoul Kerr providing rap vocals, Karan Katiyar on guitars/flute, along with tour members Vishesh Singh on drums, Roshan Roy on bass, and Sarthak Pahwa on the dhol drum.

London based Wargasm kicked the night off. The duo of Sam Matlock and Milkie Way took their name from the L7 song of the same name. The band starts things off with ‘Super Fiend’. Before kicking into ‘D.R.I.L.D.O’ Milkie Way tells the crowd you only need to remember four words for this song and they are drink, fuck, fight, love. The band does its best to get the crowd to start a circle pit but ends up stopping ‘Pyro Pyro’ to get the crowd going. The band closed out the set with a cover of N*E*R*D’s ‘Lapdance’, and the bands biggest single ‘Spit’.

Des Moines band Vended, fronted by Griffin Taylor, son of Slipknot singer Corey Taylor, did a better job getting the crowd pumped up and had the crowd start several circle pits during their set.

Shortly after Vended left the stage it only took a few minutes for fans to start chanting Bloodywood. The band started their set with ‘Gaddaar’, the opening track off their debut album Rakshak. Before the fourth song of the night singer Raoul Kerr wanted the crowd to know that the song “Dana Dan” is about sexual assault and how it needs to be eradicated from society. Around the middle of the set Jayant Bhadula gave a birthday shout out to a fan and had the crowd sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. Throughout the night both Raoul Kerr and Jayant Bhadula addressed the crowd about what their songs were about. Things like politics, corruption, puppet controlled news agencies, sexual assault, depression, and mental health. The night ended the same way it started with the band playing ‘Gaddaar’.

Setlist:

Gaddaar

BSDK.exe Aaj

Dana Dan

Jee Veerey

Zanjeero Se

Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot)

Ari Ari

Encore:

Gaddaar

Vended

Wargasm