Posts Tagged ‘lovebox’

We *LOVED* the Lovebox and by the looks of it - Lovebox loved us too :) We could not have asked for a better start to the tour!

The famed British weather woke us up in the morning and it was just freezing cold with a drizzle and the general moroseness that is associated with the British weather was in its element! Add to this, the fear that, coming from India, there won’t be anyone who will venture out for a gig in that kind of weather, din’t make things any easier for us!

We finally reached the venue well in advance and after collecting all the passes we needed, we headed backstage to get ready for the gig!

Like many other things in the UK, the gig started at 12.30 PM on the DOT and no one exceeded time! it was just crazy!

We got on stage a couple of minutes in advance since the band before us moved out a little early and did a quick line check before we plunged into the set!

Just as our first song, ‘Hey Bhagwan’ was getting over, Horror of Horrors, the 5th string on Raghu’s guitar snapped! Rajeev went backstage like a pro and sorted it out with the guitar from the previous band! while he fixed the string that was broke and tuned it right there amidst all that chaos!

The rest of the set was one big party with the crowd increasing in size and volume :) We got them to jump and sing and dance and even learn some Hindi! Not just that, I thought we were on the spot with our humor as well :p - and the crowd seemed to LOVE that!

This was of course, Varun’s first gig with us and after exactly *ONE* practice and he nailed it! The next task is to make him wear a lungi and jump with us on stage! But we have 5 more shows and I’m confident it will happen. It would be lovely if you guys could leave a comment here telling him how much it would mean to you that he does that - It might just change his mind :)

In all, it was a mindblowing experience, we got to see the scale of things at a festival of this size and stature and we should hopefully be back soon!

It was with great apprehension that we arrived in the UK without our guitarist Vijay Joseph and the man who was supposed to replace him was Varun Krishnan ..

So after the heart breaking news that Vijay could not make it, we were in a complete fix about how we would pull off the trip to the UK and one part of the answer was Varun Krishnan. He was the guitarist for Zero after Warren had to move to New Zealand and he came heavily recommended ;) - So we had nothing to fear!

We landed up at his house early in the morning yesterday and I must say it helps when you stay down the road from Abbey Road Studios! You know what you *HAVE* to do when you are in the vicinity of the Abbey Road Studios right? We did just that!

Sang Beatles songs and crossed the road and had someone click that famous photo! except small problems - the song that Jithin started singing when we asked him to sing a Beatles song was - “Hotel California” !! - though we can just blame his Mallu descent for it :p - and we most certainly don’t look like the Fab Four a couple of decades back, but then, it was a brilliant experience walking through music history!

Varun did not disappoint - he had his parts nailed, gave us cereal bars and cake and some excellent coffee and the morning session was a breeze! We ran through the structure on most songs we were playing and stepped out of his house to watch the long queue of people waiting to get into the Lords Cricket Ground! We have promised ourselves that we we will make it to the Final day of the Ashes test on Monday - I hope the Aussies stick around till then!

We then headed out to meet Sareata, our lovely host who has been quite an angel, helping us out with settling in and sorting out all issues we’ll face here about our travel and accomodation - its been brilliant! thank you so much :)

The evening practice session was at ‘The Joint’ which is a studio that is used by bands like Noah and the Whale and Coldplay for practice! and when we reached there, we learnt that we have been upgraded to use one of their bigger and newer studios - the Red Plus!

A LONG practice session and some Mc Donalds burgers (Thanks Sammy and Rajeev for that!!) and it was time to drag our tired selves to the flat and get some sleep! But its all good coz in a couple of hours - its us on the Gaymers Stage at the Lovebox festival!

Check out some of the pictures we’ve put up! - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=281666&id=522175007&l=fecccf746e

After all the confusion regarding our tour, we are finally off and have sorted most of it out, but then what fun is a tour without a little uncertainty ;)

We boarded the Sri Lankan airlines flight last night and had a long stopover at Colombo and are currently in the Colombo airport ready to board the next flight to the UK. In between, losing boarding passes and breaking escalators, we’re certainly making our presence felt ;)

But here we go hoping for the best and knowing that we will play our hearts out and like the lovely Anuva Seth said, hopefully break a few hearts on our way back (with only our music that is!)

Wish us luck and if you are in London next week or know someone that is, please tell them to come watch us - the list of gigs we play is here - http://raghudixit.com/uk

Yes! we are finally on our way to London to play at Lovebox Festival on this Sunday - July 19, 2009 at 2 pm -

but sadly without our guitar-god, Vijay Joseph. His Visa was rejected for reasons only the British High Commission knows. Despite having every document in place, Vijay has been unlucky twice in a row (he was rejected last year too for the SAMA festival at New Castle).

Just when I decided that the rest of the band should not travel to London, Vishal Dadlani called in to convince me not to cancel our tour and that we should try out Varun Krishnan (ex-Zero) as the replacement guitarist who now is based in London! And when Vishal says something, it’s worth listening to!

So that’s the story – Varun will learn up all our songs in the next two days and have a long practice with the band on Saturday as soon as we land and be our replacement guitarist for all our shows including the big gig at Lovebox festival J. I spoke to Varun a few hours back and he sounded pretty confident that he will be able to cover up for Vijay (even mentioned how he learnt 20 songs in two days before a Zero gig when Warren was unavailable) But Varun, I bet u have never worn a lungi and played a gig, but then, that’s the challenge you see J!!

We have few more gigs lined up – for details visit www.raghudixit.com/uk

So here we go … We will be in London, waiting for a miracle on Sunday!

What started as a general discussion about taking our music to new audiences is taking form now! We are playing at the *LOVEBOX* festival!

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