Over four nights in Mumbai, ‘Not Dead Yet’ proved that independent music remains restless, inventive, and firmly alive
Sen performs live at Not Dead Yet 2025; Photo by Pranav Marde
Mumbai’s antiSOCIAL has always carried the smell of concrete and rebellion, but across four Thursdays this monsoon, it turned into a proving ground for the stubborn spirit of independent music. Misfits Inc.’s Not Dead Yet 2025 gig series ran like a challenge, a sneer at the notion that India’s indie scene had lost its fire. Each night stacked legacy, discovery, and experiment in ways that made the title ring truer than ever.
The series began with a rush of fresh energy—Jonathan Yhome’s amazing songwriting, Dohnraj & The Peculiars’ infectious groove, Sidd Coutto and The Grinfluencers’ carefree warmth, and Green Park’s charge. It was the kind of opening night that reminded everyone how wildly different voices could still feel at home on the same stage. A week later, the tone shifted into something heavier, with Neel Adhikari setting an intimate mood before Still in Therapy and Sen carried the night into a very personal territory.
Sen’s return felt like déjà vu and revelation all at once. Years ago, with The Supersonics, he’d been the kind of frontman who could make a stage feel combustible. They tore through festivals, even stormed the UK, and left audiences convinced they were watching something rare. Later came The Ritornellos, another shot of rock ’n’ roll adrenaline, before silence took over. His recent album Pages from the Past performed at Not Dead Yet, carries an ache beyond nostalgia—it is one of the final works touched by the late Miti Adhikari, the legendary sound engineer whose fingerprints have shaped Indian music history. Supersonics members contributed guitars and drums, but it is Miti’s presence that haunts the record, binding Sen’s story to a mentor who had always believed in him. Watching him perform those songs now feels less like a comeback and more like a memorial set to melody.
Still in Therapy marked their debut performance at the series. Formed by Suyasha Sengupta, Zubin, Nihar, and Akshat, the trio stepped onto the stage for the first time as part of the Aug. 7 lineup that also featured Sen and Neel Adhikari. For Sengupta, it was a notable return to performing live in a band setting since her time fronting The Ganesh Talkies, one of Adhikari’s favorite Kolkata rock outfits.
By the third week, the walls rattled with a new kind of fervor. Sakré’s beats, Shreyas and The Siege’s intricate live chemistry, and EXCISE DEPT’s anniversary set for Sab Kuch Mil Gaya Mujhe Vol. 1 pushed the series into celebratory chaos. Each act was proof that new vocabularies for indie music are constantly being written, reshaping what it means to hold an audience in 2025.
The finale on Aug. 21 brought the spectacle promised. House of Hashbass launched Vol. 1 with a full-scale audio-visual performance, joined by OG Shez and a lineup of collaborators including Pho, The Siege, Pahaad, Yungsta, Saniya MQ, Aghor, RAK, and Pyrex. Tricksingh also joined the producer for a special performance of their new single “Haule Haule” with France’s Vacra. Flooding antiSOCIAL in bass and light, it was a closing chapter that turned the point into fact: live independent music in India isn’t going anywhere.
Threaded through the series was the memory of Miti Adhikari, though it was only on Aug. 7 that the night became a true tribute. That show brought together many of the bands he had worked with—Signal W, Long Distances, and even his cousin Neel—forming a kind of living archive of his impact. Miti’s story itself is almost mythic: an Indian sound engineer who worked with Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and the Foo Fighters, mixed sets at Glastonbury, and even earned shout-outs from Dave Grohl, who once called him “Silver Fox” on stage. Yet when he returned home, he poured the same energy into the smallest rehearsal rooms and the hungriest indie bands, always answering the call of artists who needed him. For him, the ladder he climbed internationally always had rungs left for others to climb. The rest of the series, meanwhile, wasn’t framed as a memorial but as a conscious effort to grow a community for live music—something Miti himself had championed all along.
That undercurrent carried through Not Dead Yet 2025. It was never officially framed as a tribute, yet Miti’s presence seemed to shadow every set. Sen carried it like history, Still in Therapy like debut, and Hashbass like transformation. Over four nights, the series revealed what can spark when remembrance meets forward motion: it isn’t just proof that music survives, it’s proof that it refuses to stand still—alive, restless, and always starting over again.