Archive for February, 2010

When ‘Rebel Star’ Ambarish personally recommends and invites you to perform for a event that he is personally involved in, you just go! and what a fantastic thing that turned out to be!

We were called to perform for the annual celebrations by the Sathyanarayana temple in Hulimavu (Off Bannerghatta Road) and we thought it was going to be a small affair but nothing prepared us for what it actually turned out to be! We were playing on the same stage that was previously graced by greats such as Yesudas, Hariharan, SP Balasubramaniam, Kunnakudi Vaidhyanathan and more! to even be spoken of in the same breath as these artistes is an honour let alone performing at the same stage!

There was a little disappointment because of the person who supplied us with the drum kit for the show bringing a complete sub standard kit inspite of promising the best! well .. that just goes on to our list of vendor woes and is another lesson learnt! But the people came out in huge numbers for the show and by the time we got off stage post our sound check and before the show had to start, there were easily about 15,000 people in the audience ready to party! It was infact, after a long time that we saw people climbing buildings nearby etc to watch our show! It did help that the show itself was in the middle of the main road in Hulimavu!

Half way through our show, one of the superstars of the Kannada Film Industry, Mr. Devraj and his wife came along and sat right in front of the stage! that just completely roused the crowd’s interest and one song later, when the man himself, ‘Rebel Star’ Ambarish turned up, it just went insane!

We weren’t sure if we were to continue or if we had to call them on stage right away, but Mr. Ambarish sat right in front of us and told us he was here for the music and to watch us, and we should just go on with the show!

We ran through some of the newer songs we’ve written including ‘Kodagana Koli Nungittha’ which is gaining in popularity, and the title track of ‘Just Maat Maathalli’ which were both completely loved by the crowd following which we closed with Raghu’s most popular song in Karnataka right now, ‘Ninna Pujege Bande Mahadeshwara’.

Half way through the last song, everyone went up to Ambarish sir and got him on his feet and he was doing a little jig with some of the organizers which got the whole crowd including the people on those buildings going crazy! What a way that was to end the show after which, the whole band got felicitated and Ambarish sir took the mic and told the whole gathering that he was a regular for this event and its something very close to his heart, but this year, he was there because he is a fan of the Raghu Dixit Project and he was here to listen to Raghu’s music!

That, coming from him, is most humbling for us as he added that, the value of the band cannot be matched in money, but only in the love that everyone showers on us! and it was a LOT of love they showered on us that night :)

As I look back on the show last night, it was something truly special and one that we will not forget in a hurry! there is something about performing to the people who love your music in your own backyard, heck, this was right by the roadside! its truly magical!

Much thanks to Ambarish Sir, Devraj Sir for coming in and watching us! and Mr. Venugopal who called us and made everything possible for us to play yesterday and special credit to Niranjan Sivram on the sound console who also took these photos!

Its not everyday that you are called to perform at a concert in Bangalore that starts at Midnight and goes on to the wee hours in the morning! atleast not if it is bang in the middle of the city and at full volume! But that’s just one of the reasons this show was so special!

It was Shivratri and the folks in Jayanagar were going all out to stay awake that night! and for that, they made the right choice when they picked us! :)

Mr. Lokie from Taurian Events, went all out to ensure that everything we asked for was provided, tech requirements wise and I am still reeling from multiple phone calls with him ironing out every little detail on stage and around it! But that din’t stop some glitches during the sound check which were deftly handled by Niranjan and Vinod who were helping out at the console that day!

We arrived early for the show in the night and it was the perfect time for Ganesh, who has been faithfully following us and photographing our shows for us to experiment with the lenses he had borrowed.  He had the band doing all kinds of weird things and the combination of those lenses and our mental ideas resulted in some very interesting photographs! A small sampler of the same is put up here for your viewing “pleasure”!

After a couple of hours at the venue, we were joined by the man of the moment, Sudeep himself who was clearly basking from the success of his latest movie, Just Maat Maathalli, which I’d definitely recommend you go watch! He came and sweetly introduced himself to us and then spent some time chatting with us before he got mobbed by eager fans who were whipping out cameras of all shapes and sizes to click their pictures with him!

The show started close to midnight and it was a surreal experience going up on stage at that time in Bangalore. That is usually the time everyone is packing up and heading back home! But that night, the party was just starting! and we were not ones to sober it down, so we went on stage and allowed the audience to get used to us for the first song and then, much to the dismay of the organizers who were trying to make people sit in an orderly fashion, we got every single person in the audience jumping around and dancing along with us!

A couple more songs and it was time for Sudeep himself to get on stage and deliver the mother of all treats to the audience when he took the mic and sang “Munjane Manjalli”, his favourite song from the movie! He then moved on to some audience games where he got sections of the crowd screaming their lungs out pitted against each other in a way that convinced us of the fact that he really needs to start a band of his own!

Sudeep’s cameo got the entire crowd even more excited and we launched into some of Raghu’s film songs followed by our new Kannada songs including the eternal favourite of every Kannadiga, “Kodagana Koli Nungittha”.

By now it was 2 AM and time to finally heed to the multitude of requests that were pouring in for “Mahadeshwara” and a perfect note to end a brilliant show on! we are very grateful to the organizers and also to Mr. Lokie who co-ordinated the whole event, we loved the show, we loved the food and you guys were lovely! Do get us back there next year!

The Symbiosis Institute of Design (SID) fest Fundamental 2010 came through after much trial and tribulation but thanks to the persevering Kshitiz, the student co-ordinator, we made many exceptions to our rule!

It was an unusually early flight we took to land in Pune which was to our surprise much colder than Bangalore where we left from! And we were promptly welcomed by 2 guys from SID who looked like they really needed sleep and BAD! That was just the beginning!

We were whisked away to our hotel and all was well till lunch when I decided to head to the college to check the status with the stage and the sound set up. Now the sound vendor was a good chap and he had reasonable equipment but sadly, he had gotten it all wrong! The monitors were phasing all over and for the longest time, Nitin Joshi who made the miracle happen, was seen marshalling the troops and rewiring everything to get it to a sound checkable state!

The sound check it self was quite a challenge and after moving everything around including the PA itself we were finally set to do the show.

The crowd was sitting down like they were ready for class early in the morning but it only took the slightest invitation from Raghu to get them all right up front and almost on stage along with us! From there on, there was nothing really that could go wrong. The energy coming back at us that night was something else and it was pushing us to take the songs to a whole new place!

There was an incident in the middle where our violinist Karthick snapped a string while tuning up for a song and we started hearing chants of “Go Karthick” which upon clarification, we realized that they wanted him to go to the girls hostel! It was a landmark moment and we have to congratulate Karthick for getting the tuning right and continuing to play at the right tempo and not speeding up for obvious reasons! What happened post the gig is beyond the purview of our lovely little blog.

But after all the confusion that ensued in the morning, this was one of the best gigs we’ve played in a while. The energy from the lovely people at SID completely overwhelmed us and to say the least, we’d love to get back there very soon!

A huge thank you to all at SID, especially Kshitiz who went completely out of his way to ensure this happened!

Also for doubling up as an excellent photographer apart from his main role as the miracle worker sound engineer, Nitin Joshi who took these lovely photos of us playing at SID!