Archive for September, 2009

Much has been said about what we refer to as “The Mysore Incident” and it has to do more about things around the show than the show itself!

We have kept our silence about the whole issue for long and atleast from our point of view, it was one of our best shows! there were some 25,000 people who all seemed to love and enjoy our music and infact, it was one of the most energetic crowds we have had at a show!

We were as surprised as you were about the article in the Times of India which was clearly not how things went down that night! we pointed to other references about the same show and asked you guys to make up your own minds!

Featured here is the article that appeared in the very same newspaper the next day about the show and how well it was received, so now again we ask you to do the very same thing - make up your own minds on what happened :) - Also, head over to our guestbook to read what people saw and felt and also tell us what you think!

(click image for full version)

From our side, we were thrilled to bits to be playing in Mysore finally and it was a momentous occasion for the band. The crowd at that show were just awesome and it was an experience we won’t forget in a long time!

Our sincere thanks to the organizers and for everyone who did their part in getting us to play in Mysore, we would LOVE to come back again :)

This show was due from a long long time and in retrospect, it was fully worth it! Its been over 15 days now, but we are still reeling from it!

For a show put together with such short notice, it was amazing how it all fell into place. But lets start at the very beginning.

The lovely chaps at IndianStage.in came to us a couple of months back saying they wanted to start conducting shows in Bangalore for their clients and for the general public and they would like to start with The Raghu Dixit Project. They had no sponsors, no partners, no nothing, but they knew they had to put together a good show and they were confident that Bangalore would not let them down if they could put together something great!

Now the sanest thing to do at that point is to say - DON’T!

But we decided otherwise - we looked at this as an opportunity to create something that we had always dreamed of! a show that truly defined the Raghu Dixit Project. A remarkable collaboration with various dancers, musicians and also with video jockeys, and some great sets! The plan was to set the bar for performance so high that it would be something that everyone will want to attend!

So we got around to doing just that.

We got Clio, the Greek-French harp player from Pune to come to Bangalore a few days in advance to re-arrange 2 songs with us, we got Nritarutya, the best dance company in the world to work out something that would eventually blow our minds for Khidki, Garudi dancers (dressed as HUGE dolls) to come on stage to add colour to Mysore Se Aayi, Kamsale dancers to join us on stage for ‘Mahadeshwara’, Anil and his team from Davis Pro Sound to set up a video projector system and work with us over a couple of weeks to get the concept and the meaning behind each song right so that they can then project some amazing stuff behind us when we were playing and most importantly, the sound and the lights itself!

We also got our dear friend Varun Agarwal from Last Minute Films, to set up 5 cameras in the hall to record all of this for a DVD to be released!

The days leading to the show were filled with hectic activity and it was like sinking into quicksand with the number of things that we had to get done. Fight everyone’s schedules, rehearse, co-ordinate things with the guest performers, ensure all equipment was in order, permissions, printing, making sure we invite everyone for the show and then our costumes and the show itself!

But once it started, it was pure magic! the best show of our lives - the most co-ordinated, visually rich and filled with some amazing moments! And the audience itself, some fantastic people who were with us through the show lifting the performance even higher :)

Our heartfelt thanks to Clio, the folk dancers, the sound and lights company - Davis Pro Sound, IndianStage for seeding this idea - we hope you continue to do this a lot more and to Nritarutya - by far the best in the business, we ourselves were not ready for what you guys did on stage with Khidki! It was magical!

If you were there at the show, let us know what you thought of it and also - watch this space for announcements about the DVD.

Thank much to Kalyan Varma, Ganesh Raghunathan and Prasad Bhat for the excellent photographs!

Its amazing how Nritarutya landed up and elevated the song we have been playing for so long to a whole new level!

The plan was always on to have Nritarutya choreograph some dance sequences for some of our songs, it was only logical that we did that! They are undoubtedly the best contemporary dance company in India, well, atleast we definitely think so! and there are unbelievably exciting to watch on stage!

Thanks to our amazing friends at Kyra, we had the best rehearsal space in the city available to us! and we even had an audience to boot! Everything was set up for us on stage when we arrived for practice and after some warm up jams, it was time to see how things would go with Nritarutya.

The dancers arrived just after and with a quick warm up, were all set to rock and roll. We started going through the song part by part and watched in amazement as they went through their routine. It was brilliant to see that we had both worked out our parts to perfection and so with some small fixes, we were all set and feeling confident!

I can guarantee you that they will blow your minds tomorrow and you can confidently expect a visual treat! Infact, It was unbelievable how, for the first 3 run throughs, we could not concentrate on the song! we just kept looking at the choreography!

A huge round of applause and our heart felt thanks to team Nritarutya for putting in crazy hours to work out something fantastic for our show - you guys just took the song to a whole new level!

The show tomorrow will feature, for the first time ever, a female instrumentalist playing along with us and what a start it is :)

Boys and Girls, say hello to Dimitri Clio Karabelias, a Greek harp player who grew up in France and is now settled in Pune! She has been adding a very different touch to ‘Ambar’ and the new song ‘Sajna’. She has been working on adding her parts over the past couple of days and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out!

So put your hands together for Clio and make sure you are there tomorrow to check this out!