Here's a shift from emulating your favourite rock demi-gods. Moving over covers, originals will be the musical staple that will light up the stage in front of audiences across seven cities. The DSP Black Rockilution 2007 will have professional and semi-professional competing with their original tracks from Ludhiana, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai in the coming weeks.

Interestingly, the competition kickstarts in Pune with auditions on September 13 and the city finals on September 14 at Area 51. Eight-odd bands including Trees on Fire, Illuminati, SOS, Relapse and Silver, will be vying for the top slot under the watchful eyes of the judges— Gary Lawyer and former member of Indus Creed, guitarist Mahesh Tinaikar, among others. For instance, Trees on Fire promises a three-track gig in the stipulated 20-minute performance duration. “Among these, we are performing our latest original, yet untitled, which is based on our relationship with Nature and the environment. There’s a lot of faking around going on these days. We are living in a materialistic world. So the song talks of how we need to go from inside out,” says Randhir Dange, the band’s drummer.

With over 150 entries received from all over India so far, the competition will judge bands playing originals on the basis of material presented, playing effectiveness, vocal effectiveness, timing and entertainment value. “We’ve stressed the need for originals because it involves a greater challenge than playing covers, which every bands does anyway. Hence, the requirement for each participating band to send us their demo CD/album,” says Sunil Mathew, general manager, operations at DNA Networks, the organiser of this event.

The event hopes to provide a good platform for bands to create their individual identity through originals. “A lot of serious rock bands want to make a breakthrough in the music industry. So performing originals really helps them in getting noticed. We’ve penned one of the originals, Secrets, especially for the competition,” says Aastha Tiku, vocalist of the month-old,city-based band, Relapse.

As another participant, After Taste, the Mumbai-based, four-member band that performs alternative and funk rock, has been doing all this while. In action since the past year-and-a-half, the band has done quite a few performances in Pune and other cities. And all along it realised the need to perform originals. “Initially, we started playing covers of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus, Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down. But we wanted to create our own identity with originals. Now almost 80 per cent of our performances comprise originals,” says Levin Mendes, the band’s drummer.

With an eminent panel of judges choosing one winner from each city, the finalists will perform on October 14 at Mumbai’s Hard Rock Cafe. With a four-CD deal signed by the organiser with Sony BMG, one of the CDs will comprise originals by the eight Rockilution finalists. “The CD will release a couple of months after the finals. Also, a behind-the-scenes episode on the finalists will be aired on VH1,” informs Mathew.

They’ll rock on hard, for sure!