Neighbourhood Indies: How Gauley Bhai's Lollapolooza 2026 performance carries Nepali songwriting onto a global format

Folk music is often treated as something delicate—bound to small rooms, local audiences, and inherited ritual. Gauley Bhai refuses that framing, keeping folk tied to movement. As the contemporary folk-rock quartet prepares to play Lollapalooza Mumbai on 24 January 2026, their slot signals not a break from tradition, but tradition scaled to a global festival field.

Their name—Gauley Bhai, “brothers from back home”—sets the tone. Formed in Bengaluru in 2017 by Veecheet Dhakal (vocals, violin), Anudwatt Dhakal (bass), Joe Panicker (drums), and Siddhant Mani Chettri (guitar), the band is shaped by shared beginnings in Kalimpong and Calicut and the later pull toward bigger cities. That in-between life—geographic, cultural, emotional—sits inside their writing.

The foundation is Nepali folk: oral storytelling, cyclical forms like jhyāure and dohori, and rhythms linked to labour, travel, and communal life. Taking cues from figures such as Jhalakman Gandharva, Gauley Bhai treats folk as practice, not preservation. The material is loosened through rock structures, blues phrasing, South Indian rhythmic ideas, and flashes of hip hop. On “Nepali Ko Rela,” melody rides an open groove while the violin slips between hill-song phrasing and improvisation, letting the song change shape live.

Joro (2019)—“fever” in Nepali—moved through love, loss, displacement, and restlessness. Sung entirely in Nepali, it travelled across language lines and helped build a reputation for visceral shows, followed by touring across India, Nepal, and the UK.

With Sunbari (2025), subtitled *A Field Where Gold Grows*, the band leans into a more produced, textured palette: sound design, electronics, Afrobeat, and hip hop, shifting from jam-led sprawl to a hypnotic, deliberate language.

Community remains central. Their work with youth along the Teesta highway—leading to Teesta Creative Space and Teesta Troupers—points to music as both expression and infrastructure.