The reward, undoubtedly, is experimentation, greater audience participation and perhaps, fewer broken guitars and no mosh pits. Raja, lead guitarist from the talented, Kolkata-based band, Span, says, “You can change your approach to a song at an acoustic gig. The tempo has to be changed and the songs need to be mixed up a bit.”

The key is not to blindly imitate the original; you have to shuffle things around for the song to be accepted as an acoustic. The response to the acoustic version of Hotel California and MTV’s unplugged gigs, which elicited rave responses from audience across over the world are instances worth pointing out to.

The transition to an acoustic gig can be pretty tough, however, as Mumbai-based Zero found out. The band needed three to four rehearsals to perfect the technique (they confessed that they had initially assumed it would be a breeze). Similarly, Parikrama also practiced for over two weeks for the Sharktooth’s Livestorms gig.

So, with Zero performing their first ever acoustic gig and Parikrama playing at a large-format, unplugged gig after almost 15 years, is this a new trend? “Two acoustic gigs aren’t enough to discuss long-term effects. The discussion is premature. The live music scene needs to change first,” says Bobby, the bassist for Zero. On the other hand, Chandresh from Dream out Loud thinks acoustic gigs are the future for the Indian rock scene. “Hopefully, we will tread paths that haven’t been so far by previous bands on the scene. Pub managers are more open to an acoustic gig as it is light on the ear,” he says.