By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani Rock Fest has started in Baku, bringing together the country's leading rock bands, Azernews reports citing Trend Life.

Azerbaijan Rock Fest is the first official, large-scale rock festival organized by TMB Azerbaijan Television in Azerbaijan to promote and develop the rock genre in the country.

The gala-night took place at the Heydar Aliyev Palace as part of the festival.

Speaking at the event, the host of the festival Husniyya Maharramova expressed her delight with the fact that young rock musicians perform at the festival thus promoting this musical style in the country.

The head of Sehiyye TV (Health TV) Azer Khudiyev said that Sehiyye TV is committed to holding a rock festival every year.

Azer Khudiyev thanked all those who worked hard to organize the gala concert.

"People cannot live without music. Wishing young people to always keep the rhythms," he concluded.

The music festival brought together rock bands like Passion, Free From Four, Dede Baba, Orkhan Efendi, Qara Dervish, Evil Decay, Sadnos, and Groove INspires.

The gala concert aroused great interest among the audience. The crowd roared in delight as the rock musicians took to the stage.

Notably, the director of the gala evening was Honored Artist Inara Babayeva.

History of Azerbaijani rock music

The history of Azerbaijani rock traces back to the 60s. Eskulap, Khurramity, Express-118, Piazyavyag, and Yuvet were among the leading rock bands of that time.

Jazz-rock with ethnic elements gained popularity in the 70s thanks to the rock bands Dzhur-bya-dzhur, Meshel, Brevis and Three fires.

In the 1980s, ensembles like Rast, Sirdash, Ozan also contributed to the history of Azerbaijani music.

On May 1, 1988, the first rock festival- Rock Panorama was held in Baku, which had a great resonance.

The festival's second edition was held in 1989 and brought together 30 music bands, including Without makeup, Faust, Neisan, Reason, and Terminal.

Among the groups that made their debut at the II Rock Panorama were Reportage, and Charli Atl.

In the 90s, such music bands like Yuxu, Charli Atl, ColDunya, Spark, Mirage, Mozalan, and Sirr started to gain popularity among music lovers.

From mid-October to early November 1996, ColDunya's song Sehrbaz was one of the top ten songs on BBC radio.

The rock bands like Fatal Nation, Demogorgon, Ferrum, Sakura, Regress, The Nails, Pro'n'Con and many others appeared in the 2000s.

Unformal was among one of the brightest and most rock popular bands.

At that time, the rock band Gara Dervish started to experiment with the combination of rock, metal and classical music.

The Azerbaijani rock scene has expanded significantly after 2010 due to the spread of new genres including heavy metal, black metal, punk rock, etc.

The rock bands 5:59, Meridian, Retribution, Pagan, Silence Lies Fear, Sirat, Tengri, Midnight, Orient Express, Sadnos were successful in subsequent years.

In 2011, RockOut FM, the first rock radio station was launched in Azerbaijan.

In 2014, Tuborg Green Fest , the largest rock festival in the country's history, was a great success.

The first Azerbaijani rock opera "The Journey of Sinbad" was written in 2017 by composer and vocalist Rizvan Sadirkhanov.