Archive for November, 2009

It takes very little to get us to come back and play at the Bandra Land’s End Amphitheatre! 2 years back, we released our debut album there and it is just magical every time we get back.

We got invited to play at the Celebrate Bandra fest, which is a superlative effort considering the number of stages and the number of activities being planned and to consider that it is just Bandra and not even all of Mumbai that is putting it together, it is a tremendous undertaking and a great blessing to the residents of Bandra! Maybe its time to think of a Celebrate Koramangala?

So … Great venue - Check!

Stay at the Taj Land’s End - Check!

Roger Drego with Dwayne doing sound - Check!

Delegates from Unconvention coming to check us out - Check!

A packed house at the Bandra Land’s End that was all set to party - Check!

It was like the missle had been loaded and locked on and was just waiting for a gentle push of that trigger!

After some initial confusion about the slot and travel dates and figuring out entry for our friends who had come to watch us without passes :p, it was time to get on stage right on the dot!

It was the tried and tested route this time round - we went out there and got the crowd on our side and then gave them a taster of some of the newer material and pulled out some rarer songs on the setlist like ‘No Man will ever Love you like I do!’ which really went down well with the people that had come to watch!

The proof of the pudding was in the fact that we sold all our CDs that night, and I mean, EVERY SINGLE ONE we had got with us! And we had people waiting to get their hands on a few more!

Serious props to Kunal Kakodkar for these incredible photos! Check out some more of his work! Thanks to the Unconvention Delegates who watched us play, even if only for a bit, I do hope it was worth the rush!

Also, check Miss Malini’s Coverage of our gig and some special videos she shot with us that day :)

Special thanks to everyone who came for the gig, we know you had options of other gigs to go to, but you made this one very special for us :)

For any band, the first gig in an all girls college is a landmark. And when that college is Gargi College in Delhi, it is monumental! I don’t think the college themselves know, but the college fest has a reputation for being one of the best gigs you can play in the Indian college circuit and we were told this by Vishal Dadlani, who played there with Pentagram a couple of years back.

But we had to see it for ourselves ..

The back story to this gig was that the Vice President of the College Union, Krutika Bopanna wrote to us one fine day asking us to come play at the gig and from that day, there have been so many plan changes with our travel and everything related to the band, that we put her through a management crash course along with her current Psychology course that we tested her in as well!

But all was well when we landed up in Delhi last week and we shall gloss over the guest house and skip straight to the venue for our soundcheck. Now you should realize that for all of us, its been a while since we last went to college! and there was brand new excitement all over again when we entered those gates and there were some funny stories of “contraband” being confiscated at the gate being relayed to us!

The sound check itself was quite short and it needed a lot of shuffling of equipment on stage especially because the drummer of the band before us was left handed and everything had to be changed around :)

The show started right after an entertaining set by Atharva and we went into top gear from the word go! The screaming audience was the one thing that kept us going through the Delhi cold and it was much fun. They jumped and danced and sang along and screamed and screamed and screamed some more!

Of course being a girls college, the set list was customized to include seldom played songs like “No Man will ever Love you like I do” and a passionate version of “Ambar”, but the crux of it was that we had a total blast on stage and to the brave girls and boys who stood till the end in the cold Delhi weather, I hope you guys had as much fun as us!

Thanks again to everyone from Gargi College, especially to Krutika and the college union, for putting this together and making this happen. Gucci from Them Clones for an excellent job on the sound console considering all the challenges we had and to the ever awesome Shiv Ahuja for another excellent set of photographs!

Our tryst with New Delhi got a lot more intimate upon our last visit there for The YP Foundation’s Vikalp. Ishita and The YP Foundation are a bunch of young passionate chaps who are doing some brilliant work in the social sector and have gained recognition for it not just in Delhi where they are based but in the whole wide world!

It was only natural for us to give them any support that we can and so when they called us to play for Vikalp, it did not take much to convince us :)

We landed in Delhi after a bunch of flight re-shuffling and were taken straight to Zafar’s (the co-ordinator for the Music Project that they run) house which to say the least, is an “experience” :) - A nice home cooked meal and a quick nap followed immediately, after which we headed to the India Habitat Center (IHC), a venue that has now grown very close to our hearts.

A quick sound check followed and while the Film Festival started in the amphi theatre, we dashed to the green room to get changed but nothing had prepared us for what would follow. We got back to the amphitheatre on the dot at 8.30 PM and they were all set for us to start the show! We saw a crowd of about 300 people ambling around the amphitheatre, but it was a great sign for us because when we would start, they would come and more with them and pack the place! and they did!

We decided this time round to reverse our setlist, and to play our new songs that we never end up playing because the show always goes beyond the time limit, so we did, started with “Har Saans Mein”, followed that up with “Lokada Kalaji” and our version of “Kodagana Koli Nugittha?”. That was followed by a dedication to the first lady of the YP, Ishita Chaudhry (who turned every shade of pink possible through the dedication) before we played “Sajna”.

By this time, the crowd had been sufficiently warmed up, and had even exercised their vocal chords, had jumped about, clapped continuously and were all set to take a break when we took it one notch higher with “Khidki” and the regular set in reverse, finally ending the night with “Hey Bhagwan” and “Mysore Se Aaayi” which saw about 500 people in that amphitheatre jumping along with us like little kids!!

A quick encore followed and miraculously we had managed to squeeze all of that, encore included in the hour and a half and at 10PM on the dot, we stopped, much to the delight of the organizers and the disappointment of the cops there! :p

A true testament to the fact that the gig had gone splendidly well was the fact that we sold ALL the CDs we could possibly carry with us to Delhi and people were asking for more! who says people are not buying music? they just need a great show before they buy it :)

Much thanks to The YP Foundation and best of luck for all the work you guys do, thanks to Shiv Ahuja for these brilliant photographs, and to everyone who made this possible.

Check out all photos of the gig at - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=122091&id=502057721

It was Raghu’s Birthday and we thought we could celebrate it by doing something unique, something no Indian band has done ever before! (Infact, something very few bands in the world have attempted!) To take music to places it has never been to before! And as if to satisfy all these cravings, we hit upon the idea of performing at the ‘Parappana Agrahara’ - The Bangalore Central Jail!

Nothing can prepare you for the first time you enter a Jail (and in my case, it was only to check the venue!) - when you walk into those gates, the nervousness sets in and you are just in a heightened state of awareness suddenly! you are keenly observing every single detail and always watching out of the corner of your eye for something un-natural.

But again, once you are there for about 20 minutes, nothing can beat how quickly you get used to the place! Atleast the Bangalore Central Jail was that way for me. After a short duration, you began to see the human side of the people around you and not start to wonder why he was there!

We got all our permissions in place well in advance and inspite of some last minute jitters, we were all set to start on time.

At this point, all of us should put our hands together for Acoustic Control, the guys who did sound at the venue, who gave us a massive discount and shared in the crazy idea that enamoured us from the word go!

We knew that we were asking for too much if we started our audience to sit quietly as we ran through our sound check! So we quickly did a line check and then just went up to the green room and quickly got into costume! and at 12 noon, the band started.

Now none of the wardens were ready for what was to follow and and I don’t think most of the prisoners had any idea either. There were there ready to watch what was happening, but were not expecting to hear much or see much, or atleast thats what they told us from previous experience. So when they saw us set up the truss and the flying speaker system, they did not know what would hit them!

Right from the word go, it was a PARTY! All of them wished Raghu and we launched into “Hey Bhagwan” which saw a lot of hooting and clapping and one guy whistling through the song that sounded like a variety of birds were meeting! By the time we came to “Mysore Se Aayi”, we had most of them with us willing us to take them further!

The calls for Kannada rang loud after that and Gudugudiya Sedi Nodo started the Kannada set. From there, there was no looking back! we ran through “Lokada Kallaji Maduthinanthi”, one of the newer songs, “Khidki” and then “Neene Beku”, which they all went crazy about! We had them standing and dancing and shirts being swirled in the air and the whole time, the police and the jailors watched as the people in their custody truly were having fun in a place that was inherently not meant to be fun!

The warden then came over and thanked everyone for pulling this off and admitted that he had no idea what to expect when they told him it was going to be a “rock” show, but he then said that it was just perfect for him and everyone that was in there!

The finale was what has become synonymous with Raghu in Karnataka atleast, we played “Ninna Pujege Bande Mahadeshwara” and what a fitting end it was! the entire place erupted with everyone joining in and singing along, it was something you only hear about in fables!

We had a great time putting this together and thanks to Prasad from Prakruthi and every one of the prison authorities who helped us to make this happen. Thanks also to Sanjay and Sathya and the boys from Acoustic Control for making sure it was all smooth and nice and for the excellent set up! Huge thanks to Ganesh Raghunathan for documenting the whole thing with your photos!

We hope that for that one hour or so that we performed there, we helped some of the prisoners look at the bright side of life and that somewhere music made a connection, that will someday lead to reform :)

Happy Birthday Raghu - I don’t think it could have been any more special!

See the rest of the pictures on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=339976&id=522175007&l=86c1477067

November 11th is Raghu’s birthday, and what better way to do it than to go to jail?!

When a discussion with Prasad who runs Prakruthi, lead to this idea of going into the new Bangalore Central Jail and performing for the prisoners there, any normal person would think, what a crazy idea! and we being the people we are, thought to ourselves, “WHAT A CRAZY IDEA!!!”

Thats all it took! One crazy idea and then it was time to put the logistics in place. That is still being done, but the gig is on!

So on the 11th of November, at 11 in the morning (do you notice the pattern? - 11/11 at 11 AM?) The Raghu Dixit Project goes out and does the Jailhouse Rock! And since most of you respectable citizens will not be present for that gig ;) - we will have a DVD of that show, shot courtesy RAJ Music ready for your viewing pleasure in due time!

So wish us luck and see you on the other side :)

After a long hiatus, we made it to New Delhi for the Rocktoberfest on Halloween! The Garden of 5 Senses, an excellent venue played host to this small but fun festival and it was a brilliant lineup the day we played!

Transport in Delhi has always been a mixed bag for us, and this time was no different! we got our drivers who were in a completely parallel universe and that makes things fun for the band if not anything else. We were put up at Heritage, a simple and homely guesthouse in the vicinity of the venue, which was the most fantastic place! I totally recommend it if you are looking to stay in Delhi for a couple of days!

Sound check around noon in the Delhi heat was a slightly bad idea, but it was very essential that we did the sound check considering the number of issues that cropped up, right from stage amps that stopped working to instruments that were losing tuning. But Sam and the gang from the sound company made sure that things were just perfect for us on stage and sounding brilliant off stage, so all was well that ended well!

A quick trip to a nearby mall where we found some completely unhealthy food options, but those are the ones that taste the best, so we did succumb to temptation and hogged away while Siva and Vijay did some quick shopping (we boys indulge too!) along with the eating and it was time to go get ready for the show.

Back at the venue, things were flowing according to plan, the beer was adding to the ‘ambience’ and the crowd that were there was totally loving it! we arrived when Mrigya was half way through their set, some very complicated Indian fusion that was being dished out with ease and following them were the Delhi favourites, Them Clones who played a short set and reminded us again why their album is a complete must buy!

We went on stage a little after 9 PM and after doing a quick line check, launched into the regular set. Raghu was determined to ensure that everyone joined the party and he managed it as well! By the time we started Mysore se Aayi, all 5 senses in the garden were in a state of heightened excitement ;)

It all came to an abrupt end though with the Delhi cops coming in at 10PM on the dot to stop proceedings, they could be part of the band with such timing really :p - but we had no choice but to comply. It was a short set but much fun! and we’re hoping we’ll see all of you and more when we come back to Delhi in a couple of weeks. Keep watching this space for updates.

Thanks to the guys from RSJ, it was our first Rocktober fest and we fully loved it! and thanks to Ishita Chaudhry and Ila from The YP Foundation, for photography and helping sell our CDs!