I was going through pictures posted on various social networks that everyone had tagged the band in and I came across this amazing piece of work that was done by Tamagna Ghosh @HAMI which just blew my mind away!

I really want to put together a show case of everything that has been done by you guys for the band and our music and thank each of you guys personally for doing that! So if you have done something that we haven’t seen, please put it up somewhere, on Facebook, on Flickr, on Youtube, on anything you want and send us a link or write us an email and let us know!

Lets plan to get all of you guys together sometime soon and we’d love to personally thank each of you for doing that!

Download Link - Calendar for March 2010

I know its a little late in the year to start this, but its about time we did! Here is a desktop calendar that you can download and use - We will release one every month so you have a constant reminder about your favourite band and an easy way to mark your dates as well!

Calendar designed by - Prasad Bhat (http://graphicurry.com)

Photograph by - Kalyan Varma (http://kalyanvarma.net)

This show will be remembered as the show that almost never happened and because of Holi! but that is another story ;)

IISc’s Miditha was the last stop on a a short tour of sorts where we played shows on alternate days to round up the month of February. But some confusion meant that everything got sorted out at the last minute, but that is not something to worry about. The usual suspects caused a lot of tension during the sound check as usual, but that was sorted out to and from there on, nothing could stop this from being a fun show!

A Sunday night on the eve of Holi might not have been the best setting for a show, but we were quite surprised by the turnout! about 1500 to 2000 people who came in and most of them bang up front against the stage! All our settings we had finalized during our sound check went for a toss much to our sound engineer Niranjan’s dismay because the crowd right up front were just so loud!

But a couple of songs and all was in order as we went out and belted songs from the first album throwing in some of the new ones at regular intervals and at the same time fulfilling requests for songs from Raghu’s movies - it was a careful balancing act. But we have heard the requests for new material and the 2nd album and both are on their way - the new material is ready and at last count over 15 songs that we need to pick from for the next album and they will be unleashed sooner than you think :)

A thank you to all who came out to see us that night, it was brilliant to have everyone so close to the stage and loving the music!

Big thank you’s to Mitr Raj and Arun Ganesh for these excellent photos! Anyone else with photos, please do send them over or give us a link to the photos :)

See Rakesh Raj’s Full Album of the show - http://picasaweb.google.com/104503746765843426225/RaghuDixitIISCConcert

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!

We have always wanted to do this and this time round, there was good reason! it was a holiday, we were all in town and we needed to do a showcase!

So we asked the good folks at Kyra who asked the good folks at TiE who were doing an event there that day, who then in turn asked the good folks from the Lourd Vijay Dance School who had a performance scheduled as part of the event that TiE had! I know it sounds complicated and it actually was! but a lot of it was sorted out with a bunch of phone calls and a lot of talking and we were good to go!

This was an important showcase for us as the people from the Kennedy Centre in Washington were in town to meet for a project they were considering us for and it was just a perfect show for us to do!

We started with our regular set with the audience slowly warming up to it though there was a fun moment when Raghu just sat down until we got everyone off their seats! From there on, it was a riot!

We then moved on to some of the newer songs we’ve been doing for a bit now. The songs are shaping up well and we love how the audience is taking to them! Lokada Kallaji and Kodagana Koli Nungittha look all set to make their way to the next album.

There was a short movie set in the middle where we got one of our fans, Aditya to come join us for ‘Mahadeshwara’ which was quite a hit with the crowd and by the sound of it, Just Maat Maathalli is all set to be a crowd favourite!

So many thanks to Lekha and Shashi from TiE, Dipali and the gang from Kyra and the folks at the Lourd Vijay Dance School, I guess its fair to say, alls well that ends well! Huge round of applause and many thanks to Ganesh Raghunathan for these excellent photos!

And yea, Happy Republic Day, India is just getting started!

It all happened so quick that we are still trying to figure it all out. The show got confirmed in the wee hours of the morning on the day before we actually played! After some serious last minute co-ordination between us, friends in Mangalore and the organisers in the Shiroor Math in Udupi, we booked flights in the afternoon and started leaving in batches to Udupi to start sorting out the show!

It all came together finally with a LOT of help from the members of the organizing committee and a surprise that awaited us on the day of the show! The sound system that we found there would just not work for us and out of nowhere, we found the boys from Shantala Sound (one of our favourite sound vendors in Bangalore) waiting for their equipment to arrive. Another quick round of negotiations and we had them setting up sound a couple of hours before the show.

The function was supposed to start at 7 PM with the felicitation of various dignitaries that had arrived. The sound rig went up by 6.30 PM and between 6.40 and 6.50, we did one of the fastest sound checks in the history of our soundchecks and with much thanks to Niranjan (our sound engineer for the first time!) and the boys from Shantala Sound, we were sorted!

Raghu was awarded the Krishna Vittala Anugraha Prashasti for outstanding contribution in his field before we went on stage to start!

The show itself was unbelievably spectacular! with such a last minute set up, we were fearing the worst when we went on stage, but it all came together quite nicely. We quickly ran through Hey Bhagwan and Mysore se Aayi and then went into an extended Kannada set much to the delight of the close to 10,000 people gathered there.

This was the first show where we played the “Just Maat Maathalli” title track with the whole band and I must say it sounds quite cool live :) Incidentally, when I was waiting for the stage to be set up, a shop nearby was blasting the entire CD through his monitors and it was a nice feeling to see that happen when the entire multitude that had gathered was being fed!

The final surprise of the night was of course when the Swamiji himself, Shri Lakshmivara Thirtha Swamiji who just ascended the Paryaya throne that morning came up on stage, asked Raghu to modify the lyrics of “Ninna Poojege Bande Mahadeshwara” to a song about Lord Krishna which in a moment of inspiration, Raghu actually did and in a move which surprised all of Udupi, the Swamiji himself joined us and sang along and even broke into a small step!

In all, this was most unexpected for us and it was one of the best shows we’ve played in some time! we fully loved it and would love to do it again :)

For the first time ever, in over 12 years, we cancelled a gig, in fact, we cancelled 2 gigs back to back because we just din’t have the confidence to go up on stage considering the state Raghu’s voice was in.

Earlier in the week, Raghu had a slight cold and sore throat which just got worse over time and yesterday, when we landed in Mumbai, it had become a viral infection of the throat. Raghu’s voice was completely gone and he could barely speak, but on what was an overdose of Betadine Gargles and Benadryl syrup and tons of antibiotics, we still went ahead with sound check!

But there was this nagging feeling in the back of our minds that it was not a good thing to push it and when he still couldn’t talk even, it was time to take him to the doc for a professional opinion.

Now the good news is that it isn’t the singer’s nodules that we feared it had turned into, but the bad news was that Raghu had severely swollen vocal chords and voice box and it was a viral infection and the ONLY thing that would make it better and not just supress it for a couple of hours was complete voice silence for a couple of days atleast.

Considering that, we decided to opt out of the MTV Roadies launch gig yesterday and the Virasat Festival we were to play at today. This is the first time ever that we are pulling out of a gig and it is not a good feeling! we left a LOT of people disappointed today, but it was the best thing to do considering the situation.

A HUGE round of thanks, really heartfelt thanks to Jagjit and Aashish at MTV, we promise to make it up to you guys! Sorry for letting this one go by, we really hope you managed to work things around!

A BIG round of applause and a million thank you’s to Vijayshree and the folks at the Virasat Festival for understanding and being the sweetest organizers a band could ever hope to work with! You guys saved our lives and we are forever indebted.

Thanks a bunch to Faridkot, who just finished a gig, took the decision and went out to Dehradun to play at the Virasat Festival, you guys saved our behinds and we do hope you have a great gig!

Thanks to Fali and Dhruv for putting up with the incessant calls and being such great people and working things out for us!

Thanks to Nikhil and Swarathma for being there and ready to go out and help at the shortest notice ever!

We owe all of you big time! And your unconditional support and love overwhelms us!

The good news is that it isn’t as bad as it could be, the bad news is that it isn’t as good as it should be! but a LOT of rest and quiet for Raghu is exactly what is happening right now and if things work out, we should be good to go soon!

Keep your fingers crossed and send him some love :)

We’ve played to a variety of audiences over the course of this year but we have to say, this was one of the most unique shows we’ve had to play at. Headlining the coolest Open Source Conference in India was something we found hard to say no to! especially considering it was our friends conducting it and our bass guitarist / manager who was also part of the organizing committee!

Mrinal Kalakrishnan’s robot exploits set up the stage perfectly for us to come in and tear the place apart! at a Geek conference, some uber cool geekery like he displayed rouses people’s spirits and gets them all excited like nothing else can!

We took stage and were completely loving the sound that Vijay from Shantala sound had set up for us and the band was sounding like a million bucks! We let ‘Hey Bhagwan’ pass with the audience getting used to the sound and the band on stage but after that, it was time for us to get everyone and I mean EVERYONE involved in the party!

We quickly pulled off a rocking version of “Mysore se Aayi” and by now the entire audience was set for the party! there were people jumping and dancing in the aisles, a train of people going round the hall and it was only getting crazier!

The mandatory “Khidki” joke went down excellently at the Open Source conference and the song itself was quite well taken. We played some more of the regular set that included “Neene Beku”, the token ‘Psycho’ number!

The best song of the day for me atleast was the brand new ‘Kodagana Koli Nungittha?’, it has shaped up to be quite a roller coaster of a song, and it is such fun to play on stage.

I have to make a mention of the live twitter feed behind us on stage which had some really nice words being said about the show, some kind of a live feedback system! It was just difficult to fathom how they managed to send out those tweets while going crazy at the show ;) but I guess, that’s the point of it all!

In all, a brilliant show and like Raghu said, it was an awesome gig that will be very memorable for us!

Also - Thanks to all @ Foss.in who got us to play there and to Swati Sani for these killer photos!