The ‘India Dekho’ Tour – Part 2

And this time round, we were waiting to set the record straight, and to make this better for us, the Malabar Utsavam was held at a fantastic venue, by the main Kozhikode beach, about 50 feet from the water and we had a good feeling about the gig.

While traveling and performing is a dream for any musician, a LOT of it can quickly drain you and leave you in a not-so-good situation. We left Calcutta early in the morning and after a quick stop over in Mumbai, landed in Kozhikode by lunch and were taken straight to the hotel where we gorged on an excellent Kerala buffet!

I must mention, a funny anecdote on the way – Our band, over time, has learnt to take our work on the road. So when we landed in the waiting hall in Mumbai, before our flight to Kozhikode, within 5 minutes, there were 4 laptops out and all of us were having what is called a “Laptop Party” and it was a hilarious sight to see all of us sitting within 10 feet of each other chatting on Facebook and replying to each other’s posts!

Once we finished lunch, our sound engineer, Vinod and I quickly headed to the venue to make sure all was in place and amidst a lot of activity on stage, we managed to put together a decent sound check. The show was to start in a couple of hours so we had some time to relax.

Our friends from the UK, Billy and his girlfriend Lindsey, who we met in Devon for the Watts Fest and also featured in our “Tour of the Watts Fest” video, had made the trip to Kozhikode to watch us! It was great to see them there and among many things that night, they started the party!

The crowd was a little too quiet to start with and the barricades were far away from the stage but in about 15 minutes, we had a bunch of people right in front of the stage and the numbers were growing rapidly. And soon enough, it was party time in Calicut.

We must tell you, those guys knew how to party and that is exactly what they did and boy did they have moves :p – Its quite surreal when you see in front of you all those dance moves you have only seen in the movies! and there was this one guy in particular, who was the leader of the pack, and he almost took the attention away from the band!

The party started and showed no signs of stopping and it was a belter of a show till the end. It was a fabulous return to Kerala and we would love to do that again and again, and I do believe we have sown the seeds for our return!

And again, more pics by Shiv Ahuja who somehow gets magical shots each time he shoots with us on stage!

The view from where Raghu stands on stage. Notice the ocean to your right!

People starting to gather around the venue. Its time for a gig!

The Raghu Dixit Project comes out with all guns blazing!

The boy’s got moves and he shows them to everyone in the front row.

The team from Sieben events that put together our show at the Malabar Mahotsavam.