Archive for October, 2009

Part of our plan to claim one section of the Palace Grounds is underway already! we figured, if we play there often enough, they might not object to us staking permanent claim to the venue :p - So we went back a week after the Octoberfest to play at the launch of the Maruti Suzuki “A-Star” (which explains the title?) along with Parikrama and Farhan Akthar!

Soundcheck in the blazing afternoon sun is not the funnest thing we have done, but it is a necessary evil! Kumar on the sound console who has been with us for many shows before was putting us through motions as the band slowly assembled on stage and ran through some songs.

We just got off stage from soundcheck and the rain Gods decided to grace the venue and cool things down a little and at the same time delaying proceedings a little because when we came back to the venue in the night, Parikrama and Farhan Akthar were just about wrapping up their sound check.

Our twitter friends who got their passes handed out made sure that we were constantly updated on what was happening on the other side! and also when we were on stage, the rest of the world was getting updated with a blow by blow account ;)

The show started off excellently with the crowd fully on our side screaming their lungs out! Until some event happening at the next venue caused the police to come over and cut down levels on the PA where we were playing! This was a bit of a downer, but soon, things were pulled back to normal and we continued pushing ourselves largely on the basis of the crowd that cheered us on :)

A personal round of thanks to everyone who came out and watched us yesterday! you guys made the whole show worthwhile for us :)

The Great Indian October Fest has traditionally been the haunt of Rock bands and Rock bands alone, but this year, they did a wonderful thing by expanding its scope to other music as well! That meant, for the first time, we got to play at the beer festival that happens annually in Bangalore!

Half your show is made just by the ambience and the organizers of the Octoberfest made it such a wonderful experience for people who were at teh show! There was always something to do, games to play, people to meet and music to listen to! It was fantastic having 2 stages that played music back to back and ensured that there was never a dull moment!

We played after Slain, on the 2nd day of the fest, and we must commend Slain for an excellent performance! For good ‘ol Rock n Roll, there are among the few bands in Bangalore that are really good! Another such band, Galeej Gurus was playing at the indoor stage just as we finished! It sure was a weird feeling being sandwiched between 2 classic rock acts, but we were not complaining!

We started at 7 PM sharp and the tweets began to go wild! a spontaneous mini tweetup planned by many of our fans on Twitter ensured that though you couldn’t see us, you knew exactly what we were upto ;)

The crowd was fantastic and by the 3rd song, it was one hell of a party cooking in front of the stage and we loved every minute of it!

A surprise that really clicked well was the students of the Carmel School who joined us on stage with their lovely dance for Mysore se Aayi! that made the song really really special! thanks guys and girls who joined us on stage! You guys rocked!

This must also count as one of the few shows in the recent past in Karnataka that we have played which did not feature any songs from Raghu’s movie, ‘Psycho’! A commendable feat ;)

If you were at the Octoberfest, let us know what you thought! we’d love to hear :)

All photos taken by Ganesh Raghunathan

The Golden Temple is like nothing you have ever seen before and it will exceed all your highest expectations of a place that you have heard about all your life. This morning, we woke up after just 3 hours of sleep and headed out to see the Golden Temple and it was a calm that we hadn’t experienced in a long while :)

But lets start with why we went to Amritsar in the first place. The 6th edition of the Peace Festival was held this year in association with the South Asia Foundation and only when we finally (after a long stopover in Delhi) got to Amritsar did we realize the magnitude of the festival and the distinguished line up we were part of.

We were headlining the show that featured Sain Zahoor, Arif Lohar, The Sain Brothers - Goonga Sain and Mithu Sain - Goonga Sain gets his name because he has been deaf and dumb from birth and yet is a renowned percussionist!, and a group of Manganiyars from Rajasthan. This was a really wide sampler of Indian Folk music and it was our honour being a part of such a line up.

What was more impressive was that this is a peace festival trying to bring about peace between India and Pakistan, with performers from both sides of the border mingling on the same stage entertaining and singing songs and spreading the message of peace. In effect, we were representing the country in an initiative like this!

The show itself had a severely delayed start, but we must thank the students of Springdale School, Amritsar who kept our spirits up backstage, helped us with sourcing and assembling a drum kit (which was completely in shreds when we arrived!) and then for manning our stall and being the best sales people we could ever get!

The show itself was a short and energetic set which was lapped up with glee by the audience that braved the chilly Amritsar weather and made up for the lack of numbers with their voices! We loved performing to Amritsar and many promises have been made to ensure we go back there soon, lets hope all of those work out.

Much thanks to the organizers especially Mr. MK Raina and Mr. Prabhakaran who were hosts beyond compare for making our extremely short stay at Amritsar something we won’t forget in a long time.

After heading to the hotel at around 2 in the morning, we decided to wake up at 5 and go out to see the Golden Temple and boy are we glad we did that! we stayed at the temple for over 2 hours trying to soak in the ambience, and come to terms with the astounding beauty of that place! I’d recommend that *everyone* go visit the Golden Temple atleast once in their lifetime, its totally worth it!

It was early in the morning and we never really knew how this would work out, firstly, a 6 AM sound check sounds unreal, follow that up with a show that has to start at 7AM, a time when our fingers, vocal chords and our bodies are fighting with us to get back to bed!

But only when we reached there did we realize what hit us! about 6000 Bangaloreans landed up with their cycles in tow to go out and cycle anything from 5 KM to 60 KM! And thats when we thanked our stars and loved the option we had - to entertain them instead ;)

The event got off to a prompt start with the serious race going first, and we were on for a brief while after that and pulled all the spectators who were on either side of the road watching the race right on to the road for a really early morning party!

After some glitches and a whole load of waiting which was due to the sheer mass of people present and many other factors, we got on stage again for a rocking remainder of the set and quickly bid farewell in time for the boys from Chennai to catch their flight back!

Kudos to the organizers and Mr. Ashok Kheny in particular for pulling something like this off! And also many thanks to Vishnu from VnP Sound who did a stellar job inspite of having to set up behind stage! Thanks also to the volunteers who made a HUGE difference to our experience at the Cyclothon and like Raghu says in his autograph, thanks for being there when we needed you guys!

In all, it was a fun experience and it might just be the start all of required to do something clean and green!

A great cause, some excellent music and good exercise! can the combination get any better? We don’t think so :)

This will officially be the earliest we’ve ever played a gig after a night’s sleep! And its a great cause - so make sure you get there!

Sunday, 11th October, 2009

7 AM

NICE Road, Off Mysore Road

Details at - http://bsaherculescyclothon.in.com/