Posts Tagged ‘pune’

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!

The show tomorrow will feature, for the first time ever, a female instrumentalist playing along with us and what a start it is :)

Boys and Girls, say hello to Dimitri Clio Karabelias, a Greek harp player who grew up in France and is now settled in Pune! She has been adding a very different touch to ‘Ambar’ and the new song ‘Sajna’. She has been working on adding her parts over the past couple of days and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out!

So put your hands together for Clio and make sure you are there tomorrow to check this out!

It won’t be wrong to say this was a completely a Jugaad ka Video :D  This is the story of how the video for Khidki came about, shot beautifully by Channel [V]

Read more..

Just got wind of some photos of Raghu that the wonderful Kushal Das took of the Landmark store shows. Anyone with reviews?

Check out this pic and the rest of the photo set here

Raghu plays along with Vijay Joseph at the Jayanagar Landmark store tomorrow. Make sure you get there!

As I mentioned earlier, Raghu is playing in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore at the Landmark stores in each city. He will be playing a solo acoustic set and will be accompanied in each city by a guest artiste.

Go there to catch a complete new twist on the songs from the debut album, buy the CD if you haven’t already and get your CD autographed by Raghu!

The details for the shows are -

Pune
Date: 14th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, 1B Moledina Rd, (Next to Dorabjee’s) Camp, Pune. Tel: 4006 8888

Chennai
Date: 15th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, Chennai Citi Centre, R.K Salai, Chennai. Tel: 2847 777

Bangalore
Date: 16th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, Garuda Swagat Mall, Jayanagar, Bangalore

I will put up links here to the posters for all 3 gigs, please feel free to take the right poster, print it out and put it up in your offices and schools and colleges! For now, just send this link out to everyone you think will be interested and come for the shows! Who knows you might get a cool t-shirt as well :D

And while you are at it, go for the gig, take some pics and send it to us or just upload it somewhere and send us a link and I will feature it on the blog :)

Raghu is going to be playing a series of gigs in Landmark Stores across the country this weekend. There are shows planned in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November respectively. I will put up more details about the shows very soon, but if any of you are in these cities, keep those days free to catch Raghu unplugged at a Landmark Store near you!

Much has been written about the MySpace launch in Mumbai and how it was one hell of a party, but the twin launch in Pune has been forgotten a little bit. For us, it was one of the best shows we have played at a venue that was really really wonderful!

We landed in Pune after being delayed by almost two hours by one hell of a jam on the highway, and I don’t mean with our instruments!

It was our first time in Pune and infact it was the first time for all 3 bands that played that day. Nitin was in his best spirits as he made us feel welcome in his city :)

The sound check was run of the mill and I loved the tone I managed to squeeze out of the bass amp that was given to me that day! We had our lunch and it was time to rest and play some mini-golf (which I must admit I am quite good at :P) … did I mention it was a lovely venue?!? … well .. it was!

The show started somewhat on time and it was a brilliant acoustic set by Them Clones that set the tone for the evening. Swarathma followed them and I must say that was the best I’ve seen of them on stage. Both band raised the expectations quite high and we were up next looking at a very very energetic and enthusiastic crowd! The best kind of environment for a performer!

At this time, I should mention our dear friends Rewben Mahsanghwa and his little dynamite of a son ‘Saka’. Raghu calls Rewben “The Heritage Protector” because he embodies all that is good about our culture and heritage. He is a truly inspiring person and an amazing musician who makes all the instruments that he plays! and he plays quite a wide variety of them!

His son Saka is such a bundle of energy! he never stops running around … EVER! and looks like a full on rock star on stage with his shades and super costume!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnq1gZZk4hw]

Together they make music that is so truly amazing! it is simple and pure and from the heart, the one song we heard and played together was called “Lets Beautify” which spoke to the youth about beautifying our culture and going back to the roots. Check out the video clip of us doing part of the song live .. I just found it on youtube! A huge thanks to whoever put that up :)

The show was brilliant! the sound was fantastic .. and the audience was one of the best we’ve played to .. Now I hope they run to the stores and get our album ;)