Posts Tagged ‘Palace Grounds’

Part of our plan to claim one section of the Palace Grounds is underway already! we figured, if we play there often enough, they might not object to us staking permanent claim to the venue :p - So we went back a week after the Octoberfest to play at the launch of the Maruti Suzuki “A-Star” (which explains the title?) along with Parikrama and Farhan Akthar!

Soundcheck in the blazing afternoon sun is not the funnest thing we have done, but it is a necessary evil! Kumar on the sound console who has been with us for many shows before was putting us through motions as the band slowly assembled on stage and ran through some songs.

We just got off stage from soundcheck and the rain Gods decided to grace the venue and cool things down a little and at the same time delaying proceedings a little because when we came back to the venue in the night, Parikrama and Farhan Akthar were just about wrapping up their sound check.

Our twitter friends who got their passes handed out made sure that we were constantly updated on what was happening on the other side! and also when we were on stage, the rest of the world was getting updated with a blow by blow account ;)

The show started off excellently with the crowd fully on our side screaming their lungs out! Until some event happening at the next venue caused the police to come over and cut down levels on the PA where we were playing! This was a bit of a downer, but soon, things were pulled back to normal and we continued pushing ourselves largely on the basis of the crowd that cheered us on :)

A personal round of thanks to everyone who came out and watched us yesterday! you guys made the whole show worthwhile for us :)

The Great Indian October Fest has traditionally been the haunt of Rock bands and Rock bands alone, but this year, they did a wonderful thing by expanding its scope to other music as well! That meant, for the first time, we got to play at the beer festival that happens annually in Bangalore!

Half your show is made just by the ambience and the organizers of the Octoberfest made it such a wonderful experience for people who were at teh show! There was always something to do, games to play, people to meet and music to listen to! It was fantastic having 2 stages that played music back to back and ensured that there was never a dull moment!

We played after Slain, on the 2nd day of the fest, and we must commend Slain for an excellent performance! For good ‘ol Rock n Roll, there are among the few bands in Bangalore that are really good! Another such band, Galeej Gurus was playing at the indoor stage just as we finished! It sure was a weird feeling being sandwiched between 2 classic rock acts, but we were not complaining!

We started at 7 PM sharp and the tweets began to go wild! a spontaneous mini tweetup planned by many of our fans on Twitter ensured that though you couldn’t see us, you knew exactly what we were upto ;)

The crowd was fantastic and by the 3rd song, it was one hell of a party cooking in front of the stage and we loved every minute of it!

A surprise that really clicked well was the students of the Carmel School who joined us on stage with their lovely dance for Mysore se Aayi! that made the song really really special! thanks guys and girls who joined us on stage! You guys rocked!

This must also count as one of the few shows in the recent past in Karnataka that we have played which did not feature any songs from Raghu’s movie, ‘Psycho’! A commendable feat ;)

If you were at the Octoberfest, let us know what you thought! we’d love to hear :)

All photos taken by Ganesh Raghunathan

I apologize firstly for the delay in doing this and its about time I did! So here we go ..

The show was something all of us in the band were looking forward to with the greatest enthusiasm. We were dying to play a big show in Bangalore and it was after a long time that we got such a show in place.

Also, the day before the concert, we met a lot of our friends who wanted to come for the show and couldn’t find tickets elsewhere and gave them passes for the show. Before the show began however, it was a little grim because none of us were sure of the turn out and considering the fact that we were to go on by 8 PM on a work day with Bangalore’s traffic being what it is, it was not looking any good!

But when we did get on stage, it was a treat to see about 6000 screaming people in the audience who as it turned out were very familiar with our music and loved it!

That was enough of a push for us to put together a wonderful set and we got going from the first song onward! The band was full of energy and enthusiasm and were jumping around like wild teenagers on stage! The sound had a few issues on stage but we were in no mood to worry about any of that. The response we got was absolutely fantastic and we made quite a few fans that day I must say!

Karsh Kale and the Punditz who followed us were in a league of their own and were a fitting finale to the event. The organizers managed to get the concert extended long enough for a nice set from the band though I think it was Pappon who stole the show after he taught all of us how to ‘Banaao’!

A huge round of thanks to Kalyan Varma and Noella D’sa for the super photos of that night! We are still to see the rest of them though :P

The Raghu Dixit Project plays at the Nokia “Touch The Tune” concert in Bangalore at the Palace Grounds on the 23rd of January at the Palace grounds. Also playing along with us is Karsh Kale (absolutely brilliant contemporary music from India and has worked with the likes of Anoushka Shankar, Norah Jones and Sting!) and Midival Punditz (one of the biggest electronica acts in the country)

The show starts at 7 PM and goes on till about 11 PM. Head to the event page for this concert on Facebook and RSVP! Also, invite all your friends to the show!

I managed to score some passes for the concert and so if any of wants passes to the show, leave a message here and I will tell you how you can pick them up from me personally! The special Raghu Dixit Project friends and family offer :)