"I thought you only enjoy rock concerts and not the Bollywood ones"
"That's right"
"Then how come you are going for Rehman concert"
"Isn't he our own rock star"
Yes I think so... you can't put A.R.Rehman in the same category with likes of Anu Malick and Udit Narayan. He is class apart! And how on earth I can resist the opportunity to listen to the maestro live in concert ... Despite the hubby's protests against standing for hours together in cramped crowd with feeble possibility of getting a good look at the man, the wify made him attend the concert. I was sure Rehman would make him forget all the agony and oh boy ... ARR did that in most spectacular way !
As expected, there was huge young crowd and all Pune roads seemed like flowing towards the Balewadi stadium. But there were aunties and oldies too and even families attending with 2 year olds. Hats off to Pune's music lovers... they attend Sawai Gandharv and Rehman with equal enthusiasm !
Given our great time management, we reached the place dot on concert time. I had slightest hopes of catching any good view of the stage given my previous concert experiences (and my not so good height). So first thing we did was to find a good position in front of one of the screens and settled down on the ground. What I didn't expect was that I would be able to enjoy almost whole show sitting right there. People were more interested in sitting comfortably and watching the screen than jumping up and down to catch a view of the stage. I guess it only happens in Pune !
I really didn't have any choices for songs to be played given vast number of songs of him that I adore. He started with "Jage hai der tak" followed by a Tamil song. I thought ab toh gaya... people will boo him for playing Tamil song. They just waited patiently for next one to come. The patience was paid off very well when he started "Jiya se jiya". That song has enchanting beats which make it more enjoyable live.
There was Hariharan singing "Roja janeman", Rashid Ali singing "Kabhi kabhi aditi", Sadhana Sargam singing "Chupake Se"... all the Delhi6 songs were sung and so were "Kaise muze tum mil gayee" and "Maiyya Maiyya". No singers were introduced apart from Raja Hassan whose name flashed across the backstage. I really wish he doesn't sing again after the way he almost killed "Masakkali". Sivamani made a brief appearance. We were hoping to get a small solo peace from him but in vain. There were some dancers and light show but who had time to pay attention to them, while dancing to those songs and cheering our hearts out.
The man himself performed "Dil se", "Rehana Tu" and "Maula mere maula". What I loved most was that the man did less talking and played more music save a futile attempt to "interview" people from audience.
Turn offs of the show, RJ's who were anchoring as if they were on air...( RJ Shrikant you suck big time) and the winglis speech by Karad. Yes we saw Lata Mangeshkar and also one lady snoozing in the front row.
My verdict ... awesome show!!! Still have hangover of it. Afterall You don't get to listen Rehaman playing piano live with Hariharan singing "Tu hi re", Roop Kumar Rathod singing "Roshan Sama" "Bhini Bhini" (just awesome!) everyday...
ARR you ROCK !!!
Showing posts with label GaanaBajana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GaanaBajana. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The 'Rocking' place
“How come you haven’t been to ‘Purple Haze’?!”
“Oh well I never got a company! Besides it’s a pub!!!”
“You can’t call yourself a rock music fan in Bangalore unless you have been there”
“Uh oh”
“Well no worries. As long as I am here I will be the company”
“Oh wow!!!”
“Let’s not delay the first visit then!”
"Yoooooo"
That was the conversation between a friend(actually friend of a friend) and me. It was very nice of him to keep his words and invite me over. We hit the place on a weekday, last Tuesday to be precise. I was expecting no crowd but the place was already full by the time we reached there. It is just like any other pub, dark, small, smoky and loud. I won’t be able to identify single piece of furniture if saw it in broad daylight. What makes it stand apart is the music that they play! They are known to play the best rock/metal in town or that’s what I am told. When I entered the place, quite a few heads turned. Oh no I was not looking stunning or anything. Your truly was wearing a pink chudidar kutra for the visit. I guess they were pretty surprised to see a gawar looking gal banging head to the rock music tunes. If you have ever wondered, ‘Haah who wears desi cloths to such place’, you have the answer now!
Boy-o-boy, what music they play. The music is system is what metal music needs… the music just gets into your head. Best part is, they have huge screens put everywhere and video of every song is played along. They played many of my favorites like Metallica, Linkin Park, Ozzy’s ‘Mama I am coming home’. I can’t comment on food and other things cause all I had was veg Manchurian which was pretty nice. We were very much absorbed in the music to eat anything. There were some ladies showing off their head banging skills little too much… or were they advertising their hair or probably the liquor was taking its toll. I don’t know what it was, but they made a pretty picture to watch whenever I were bored looking at the video screen.
And yes, don’t let you imagination run amok and eye-brows raise with the thought ‘Whaaaat, you went to a pub!!!’ (and start conspiracy like some people already did… :-P). That’s the place for great music. I can’t help but go… you see :-D Awesome place to be!
If you like rock music by any chance, you know where to go in Bangalore! (If you don’t have company, you also know whom to call :-D).
“Oh well I never got a company! Besides it’s a pub!!!”
“You can’t call yourself a rock music fan in Bangalore unless you have been there”
“Uh oh”
“Well no worries. As long as I am here I will be the company”
“Oh wow!!!”
“Let’s not delay the first visit then!”
"Yoooooo"
That was the conversation between a friend(actually friend of a friend) and me. It was very nice of him to keep his words and invite me over. We hit the place on a weekday, last Tuesday to be precise. I was expecting no crowd but the place was already full by the time we reached there. It is just like any other pub, dark, small, smoky and loud. I won’t be able to identify single piece of furniture if saw it in broad daylight. What makes it stand apart is the music that they play! They are known to play the best rock/metal in town or that’s what I am told. When I entered the place, quite a few heads turned. Oh no I was not looking stunning or anything. Your truly was wearing a pink chudidar kutra for the visit. I guess they were pretty surprised to see a gawar looking gal banging head to the rock music tunes. If you have ever wondered, ‘Haah who wears desi cloths to such place’, you have the answer now!
Boy-o-boy, what music they play. The music is system is what metal music needs… the music just gets into your head. Best part is, they have huge screens put everywhere and video of every song is played along. They played many of my favorites like Metallica, Linkin Park, Ozzy’s ‘Mama I am coming home’. I can’t comment on food and other things cause all I had was veg Manchurian which was pretty nice. We were very much absorbed in the music to eat anything. There were some ladies showing off their head banging skills little too much… or were they advertising their hair or probably the liquor was taking its toll. I don’t know what it was, but they made a pretty picture to watch whenever I were bored looking at the video screen.
And yes, don’t let you imagination run amok and eye-brows raise with the thought ‘Whaaaat, you went to a pub!!!’ (and start conspiracy like some people already did… :-P). That’s the place for great music. I can’t help but go… you see :-D Awesome place to be!
If you like rock music by any chance, you know where to go in Bangalore! (If you don’t have company, you also know whom to call :-D).
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Aerosmith rocked Bangalore ...!!!
After all the confusions and whining… the Aerosmith show has been attended. (For starters, like my dear brother and Apoorv, Aerosmith is the cult rock band and their songs are like anthem for rock fans worldwide). It’s just the next day morning I don’t have hangover of it. I don’t know what it was… the humidity or the stupid crowd or too much of expectation or the band itself.
First it was the friend who was supposed to come with me. He decided to play prank on me and till the last moment kept telling me that he is not going to come. Then we were late for the show. The gates were supposed to open at 5:30 and we reached there by 5. I thought now I won’t even get the glimpse of the stage. But surprisingly there were not many people around. Ooh… has too man bands taken away interest of Bangaloreans or was it the highly priced tickets? I was expecting people crowding the place since morning, after all this is not just another band. They are the ‘Bad boys from Boston’ touted as one of the all time best bands in Rock history. This time the organizers also didn’t seem in the mood of making the show much popular. They had started publicizing for the show just couple of weeks ago. And on the day of event there was much confusion about the exact place of show. You must know that palace ground is a huge huge place. So unless you define exact place to enter, you are bound to get lost in taking rounds of the place and half of the roads are one way. They had not put directions properly so we ended up circling the place in crawling traffic. Thank god we were on bike, I saw many people talking the long walk (almost 2-3kms). Inside there was confusion about which line to stand in for the entry. They had common entrance for both the ticket types. Then there were separate lines for gals in a sideey corner. Even after being so late, we were able to get place pretty much near the stage. Unfortunately there were too many tall guys around me so I couldn’t see much as usual. Rock shows is one of the times when I badly wish that I were taller or least other people were shorted than me. I had to jump and keep searching for the view. My neck still hearts with that pain .
So we were inside by 6 pm. The crowd has just started to build up. We were expecting some band to open and help us kill the time before concert starts. Apart from contestants of some stupid air-guitar contest (one of them won a guitar signed by Aerosmith … luck man!!) and some firangs walking around to check the setting and clicking snaps in various poses, there was no activity on the stage. It was unbelievably hot, and despite all the no-smoking signs there were lot of chimneys around, by 8 pm we were soaking in sweat (how I wished for rain). After a while people started booing and shouting for the show to start… some creative mind started shouting ‘Angrezo Bharat Chhodo!’ After minutes of testing and retesting, they appeared on the stage. The video that preceded their appearance showed their journey through times and finally Indian flag covering the whole screen. There was also a Ganesha Idol sitting next to the drums, Pretty Interesting I say. Steve Tyler was wearing his trademark funky cloths. This time it was a female-ish looking hat, huge butterfly hanging around the neck and too many straps on the microphone. He is too dramatic on stage. They started with ‘Taste Of India’ followed by ‘Love in the Elevator’. They sang ‘Eat the Rich’, ‘Living on the Edge’, ‘Dream On’, ‘Jaded’, ‘Sweet Emotion’, ‘Falling in love is hard on Knees’, ‘What it takes’ among others. Joe Perry sang a number too. He looked cool and according to him the best thing that India has given to the world is ‘Kamasutra’!!! One of the good things was that they had made a ramp, so I got good glimpse of Steve and Joe. Joe is amazing on guitar.
Like me, most of the crowd was hoping to listen ‘Janie’s got a gun’, ‘Angel’ ‘Dude looks like a lady’. We kept shouting hoping they will sing but no success. Two hours of non-stop singing, dancing around stage. For one song Steve was wearing the Karnataka style pagari! Till the end we were hoping they will sing ‘Janie’. But they just vanished backstage. The crowd kept cheering for more and suddenly Steve came on stage ‘I hear someone wanting more songs. How about one more song?’ And he started ‘I don’t want a miss a thing’. That was crowning of the show, I say. We all sang together with the song. It was great show but could have been better.
But what the heck … I listened to Aerosmith live in concert... yayy!!!
First it was the friend who was supposed to come with me. He decided to play prank on me and till the last moment kept telling me that he is not going to come. Then we were late for the show. The gates were supposed to open at 5:30 and we reached there by 5. I thought now I won’t even get the glimpse of the stage. But surprisingly there were not many people around. Ooh… has too man bands taken away interest of Bangaloreans or was it the highly priced tickets? I was expecting people crowding the place since morning, after all this is not just another band. They are the ‘Bad boys from Boston’ touted as one of the all time best bands in Rock history. This time the organizers also didn’t seem in the mood of making the show much popular. They had started publicizing for the show just couple of weeks ago. And on the day of event there was much confusion about the exact place of show. You must know that palace ground is a huge huge place. So unless you define exact place to enter, you are bound to get lost in taking rounds of the place and half of the roads are one way. They had not put directions properly so we ended up circling the place in crawling traffic. Thank god we were on bike, I saw many people talking the long walk (almost 2-3kms). Inside there was confusion about which line to stand in for the entry. They had common entrance for both the ticket types. Then there were separate lines for gals in a sideey corner. Even after being so late, we were able to get place pretty much near the stage. Unfortunately there were too many tall guys around me so I couldn’t see much as usual. Rock shows is one of the times when I badly wish that I were taller or least other people were shorted than me. I had to jump and keep searching for the view. My neck still hearts with that pain .
So we were inside by 6 pm. The crowd has just started to build up. We were expecting some band to open and help us kill the time before concert starts. Apart from contestants of some stupid air-guitar contest (one of them won a guitar signed by Aerosmith … luck man!!) and some firangs walking around to check the setting and clicking snaps in various poses, there was no activity on the stage. It was unbelievably hot, and despite all the no-smoking signs there were lot of chimneys around, by 8 pm we were soaking in sweat (how I wished for rain). After a while people started booing and shouting for the show to start… some creative mind started shouting ‘Angrezo Bharat Chhodo!’ After minutes of testing and retesting, they appeared on the stage. The video that preceded their appearance showed their journey through times and finally Indian flag covering the whole screen. There was also a Ganesha Idol sitting next to the drums, Pretty Interesting I say. Steve Tyler was wearing his trademark funky cloths. This time it was a female-ish looking hat, huge butterfly hanging around the neck and too many straps on the microphone. He is too dramatic on stage. They started with ‘Taste Of India’ followed by ‘Love in the Elevator’. They sang ‘Eat the Rich’, ‘Living on the Edge’, ‘Dream On’, ‘Jaded’, ‘Sweet Emotion’, ‘Falling in love is hard on Knees’, ‘What it takes’ among others. Joe Perry sang a number too. He looked cool and according to him the best thing that India has given to the world is ‘Kamasutra’!!! One of the good things was that they had made a ramp, so I got good glimpse of Steve and Joe. Joe is amazing on guitar.
Like me, most of the crowd was hoping to listen ‘Janie’s got a gun’, ‘Angel’ ‘Dude looks like a lady’. We kept shouting hoping they will sing but no success. Two hours of non-stop singing, dancing around stage. For one song Steve was wearing the Karnataka style pagari! Till the end we were hoping they will sing ‘Janie’. But they just vanished backstage. The crowd kept cheering for more and suddenly Steve came on stage ‘I hear someone wanting more songs. How about one more song?’ And he started ‘I don’t want a miss a thing’. That was crowning of the show, I say. We all sang together with the song. It was great show but could have been better.
But what the heck … I listened to Aerosmith live in concert... yayy!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)