Category Archives: Music

Different types of “Rockers” you might encounter at a Rock concert in Delhi

Well, going to different Rock concerts in Delhi for more than 3 years, I have noticed how peculiar the crowd is, that comes to these concerts. I have divided them up into the following categories

  1. The Posers:- These are cool Delhi dudes whose main aim in life is to impress  girls and would go to any extent to do so. They come to these concerts impeccably dressed up, cool glasses, hair done up using copious amounts of hair gel. To give themselves the “Rocker” look, they wear things like scarves on their elbows, bad-ass gloves, chains hanging from their pockets etc. To complete the wannabe impression, they talk loudly in fake accented English and address each others as bros/homies/fellow-rocker. Before the concert starts, they would keep shouting things like “We will rock tonight” and “Rock my brains out” etc. It need not be said that their idea of rock music ends at bands like Linkin Park, The Rasmus, Green Day etc. They are mostly accompanied by rocker chick(s) (to be covered later) whom they explain the band’s history in detail and the songs to look out for. They are also apparently friends with at least one of the band members and would try to meet him in front of his friends to prove this to them. During the performance, they would frequently break into fake air-guitaring bent backwards. Why do they do all this? So that they can update their facebook profiles with their photos from the concert so that everyone can know how cool they are.
  2. The Rich:- These are men in 40s from areas like Vasant Kunj, Defence Colony, New Friend’s colony etc. They would come to a concert in their Mercs/BMWs/Jags, dressed in expensive suits with their socialite wives and crap-spoilt-fat children. They would keep checking and replying to e-mails from their smartphones (Blackberrys 2 years ago, Androids these days), “sit” at the back (so that no one steps on their expensive suede shoes) and pass the whole concert without any expression. The children would play games on their iPhones. They would  also look at distaste at the poorer crowd and leave some time before the concert gets over, so as not to mix with the poorer crowd.
  3. The Clueless:- These are mostly Jats & Bhaiyas with a lot of money but no culture/class/education. They would be passing by the venue (in their open air jeep) when they would see a crowd gathered and since they have no jobs or anything else to do, would buy tickets (not without haggling) and come in. Inside they would be clueless as to what is happening and would ask young folks “Yo kay chal rahya se” . Once the band starts performing, they would laugh at the type of music being played and also laugh at the headbanging audience and say ”Inme to bhoot chadh gayo”. But since they paid money for the tickets, they would stick around till the end, abuse everyone and leave.
  4. The Rocker chicks:- I should start off by saying that 99.9% of Delhi girls should not be allowed to enter rock concerts at all. They are an insult to the band as well as they fans. These are upscale Delhi girls. Their idea of being a rock-chick is to apply heavy makeup and wear small clothes (or Lady GaGa T-shirts). They would let their boyfriends (see: The Posers) haggle with everyone to let them be at the very front of the crowd, have the boyfriends (see: The Posers) bring a chair and sit and watch the concert. They would frequently ask the boyfriends (see: The Posers) to muscle their way through the crowds and bring them drinks. After drinking a little, they would dance to the solo of Comfortably Numb with their fellow rocker chicks while their boyfriends (see: The Posers) keep others away lest someone touches them and derives them of their virginity. Needless to say, the sight of such women makes my blood boil.
  5. The Dopers:- These are mostly Delhi University students. They drink and dope before turning up for the concert. They have long hair (if any) and thin emancipated bodies. They are mostly dressed in black with all-star sneakers. Their favourite genre is Death Metal. The louder the music and more incomprehensible the lyrics, the happier they are and more furiously they bang their heads. Between bands, they go to the corner to smoke some more dope (hidden in their socks or underwear) and then return for some more furious headbanging. After the concert is over, they stand clueless outside the venue with no idea of how to get back home. Surprisingly, this is the least dis likable groups of all the above.

PS: Thanks to Papa tere Papa of Baytay for the Haryanvi text.

Why Delhi/NCR doesn’t deserve Metallica (or any other band)

After the Bryan Adams fiasco and concert cancellation in February, here I am, spending another disappointed night at home. Metallica’s first concert in India, one I was looking forward to for months was cancelled. I don’t agree with what most of the news channels are saying; here’re the events as I saw them myself from the venue

  1. Gates were to be opened at 3:00 PM. The security personnel/organizers didn’t anticipate people queuing up since morning. By the time it was 3:00 PM, there was a huge dis-organized crowd, almost 30,000 strong, impatient to get it. The security personnel should have started organizing people in queues from the very beginning (Hats off to concerts I have seen in Mumbai; excellent organization and obedient people)
  2. Before the gates were to be opened, the security staff shouted at the crowd that unless they get into proper queues, they won’t open the gates. A 30,000 strong crowd (especially a metal concert crowd) can’t organize themselves in a queue just like that.
  3. After failing to form a proper queue, the security personnel just opened the gates. The crowd mass directly in the front of the gate surged forward, the ones on the left or the right, sensing that they aren’t making much progress, started pushing the whole crowd. This was sheer torture. For almost 40 minutes, we had to almost suffocate in the unruly crowd and risk being stampeded if we fell down. The ground was uneven. Many girls almost suffocated and had to plead with the crowd to let them leave.
  4. During entry, the security staff failed to keep up with the massive crowd surge. Not all tickets were checked and frisking was a joke.
  5. Once in, the people right at the front rushed towards the stage, banged against the barriers separating the stage from the crowd and broke them. Slowly people settled down and the crew members noticed that the front barriers were broken
  6. Crew members politely asked the crowd to move back a little so that the barriers could be repaired. The crowd did nothing
  7. Another crew member asked the crowd to do the same. They just kept standing like they couldn’t understand what was said to them.
  8. Another crew member called the crowd ‘buttheads’. At this point, the crowd started abusing back (but still didn’t move)
  9. Another crew-member politely told the crowd that the concert cannot start unless the barricades were repaired and that cannot happen with the crowd still pushing against it. Still, nothing.
  10. This went on for some more time. They also flashed the text on the screens which said the same thing. The crowd just laughed, abused and threw bottles towards the stage
  11. The crowd waited till around 18:30 when they were told that the show was postponed till tomorrow because of technical difficulties. At this point, the people standing towards the front went berserk and passing the already broken barriers, climbed up on the stage. They broke microphones, monitors and speakers.
  12. A few people gathered a banner and set it on fire.
  13. While I decided to leave, my last view was of a group of people trying to pull a huge speaker (towards the middle of the ground) down. There was not a single policeman to witness the whole event
I think the following factors contributed to this disaster
  1. The organizers/security personnel had little or no experience of dealing with a Heavy Metal concert crowd. The failed to ensure order from the very beginning. They didn’t anticipate such an early turnout and didn’t make arrangements for queues.
  2. Press says that the organizers were facing technical issues with sound, I cannot comment on this because I don’t know this for sure, but they did goof up big time. They failed to control an already unruly crowd and kept them waiting for too long before breaking bad news
  3. I feel the crowd was the biggest factor. Most of the people were unruly, already drunk/high and very different from rock/metal crowd you see in cities like Mumbai and Bangalore.
I see reports coming in now that the gig won’t be held tomorrow either, but will instead be scrapped. I understand that a band needs some rest between subsequent gigs (Metallica has another gig in Bangalore on Sunday), but the unruly behaviour/vandalism by the crowd ealed their fate. Metallica will not risk performing before such a crowd. Here’s a video

The people of Delhi/NCR don’t deserve to be rocked by Metallica (or any big band for that matter).

Great Gig Part-2

June 30th, 2011 was a day I had waited for a long time. Think Floyd performed for the second time in Hard Rock Cafe. I had informed everyone of my absence from the other responsibilities of life days ago, as soon as the dates were announced. The concert was slated to start at 10:00 PM, we reached there at 07:00 PM, waited till 8 to get the tickets. The concert actually started around 10:30 PM.
For those who don’t know about the band, read my last post or facebook fan page
https://thescurvydawg.com/2010/05/22/the-great-gig-in-hard-rock-cafe/
http://www.facebook.com/thinkfloydindia

I had a few apprehensions on what the playlist would be like on this occasion. My minimum requirements were Dogs, Sheep, Echoes, Shine on you Crazy Diamond & of course, whole of Dark Side of the Moon.
Un-like last time, the concert started with Coming Back to Life, followed by Poles Apart and then High Hopes. Just when I was yearning for some classic(old) Pink Floyd songs, they Started with Dark Side of the Moon and played the whole album, just like last time.
While they were playing, I started looking around the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Vasundhara Vee, who sang the part last time; however, I could see no signs of her. We were all surprised when the Sax guy (whose name I never heard or forgot) played the vocal parts on his Sax. It was simply amazing and played perfectly. All in all, I can safely say that “The Great Gig in the sky” was the song which surprised me most both the times.
After this came the mandatory alcohol top-up break after which they started with Echoes, followed by Sheep, Dogs, Shine on you Crazy Diamond, finishing with comfortably numb.
A few differences from last time

  1. The show was technically more successful. Last time the Sax sound went in and out, the keyboards couldn’t be heard on many songs, but this time everything seemed good.
  2. Everyone seemed more drunk than last time. Gaurav Chintamani looked like he was almost about to throw up.
  3. Rohit Kulkarni had more role this time, did most of the lead guitar work.
Overall, a very satisfying experience. I hope they do play “Careful with that Axe Eugene” next time.

Return of the Gig!!

More than a year ago, on Thursday, May 20, 2010 something legendary happened. Think Floyd played at Hard Rock Cafe Delhi and changed our lives forever.
For people like us who would never see Pink Floyd live, this was the next best thing, and the best thing we can get ever. I covered this event on this blog a couple of days later
https://thescurvydawg.com/the-great-gig-in-hard-rock-cafe/
One reason the evening was so special was we had mediocre hopes from the concert and instead they blew us away. We didn’t expect a Sax player or Vasundhara singing “Great Gig in the Sky”.
Since then, we have all been waiting for a reprise, and after more than a year the dates have been announced. It’s June 30, the same venue at 9:00 PM (right!!)
http://www.hardrock.com/live2/eventDetails.aspx?LocationID=542&eventID=49111&MIBEnumID=3
With expectations already so high, will the band exceed expectations again or fail to live up to it’s expectations? Only June 30th will tell and we will be there.

Bye Bye Worldspace Satellite Radio!

My Mom gifted me my Worldspace satellite radio around 5 years ago, knowing how much I liked music. Though it was available in India for years before this, it was not very affordable and their receivers were huge and bulky.  My mom got mine for around 5k with a yearly subscription of around 1200 Rupees in 2006.
I took it with me to Nagpur, where, reaching at 11:00 at night, the first thing I did was install the receiver on the roof and listen to music all night long. After that, I knew which direction “South-East” was, in every house I lived. After moving to Kolkata, we went to great lengths to install the receiver on the apartment roof, run the cable down to our flat. Did the same when I moved to 2 different houses in Gurgaon.
While satellite radio might not a hit amongst the general population in India (“Who listens to Radio at home when you have TV?” or “Who pays a subscription fee to listen to radio when you can download pirated songs for free?”), it was a boon for music lovers. Almost every genre of music imaginable, spread across more than 50 channels, with excellent sound quality, it was everything a music lover had been waiting for.
My favorite channels used to be Orbit Rock and Voyager. It was on Orbit Rock that I first listened to Echoes by Pink Floyd. I had tuned in mid-way and the haunting nature of the music instantly mesmerized me. The music went on for 20 minutes and I was left with an overwhelming desire to listen to it again. Thankfully, the Worldspace India website provided a way to find out which song played when and there was also a section to request new songs.
After moving for the second time in Gurgaon, the Radio fell in bad times. I did not get to install it for almost 5-6 months, and even after I did, I didn’t listen to it much, partly due to my hectic schedule.
Then one day, I read in the newspaper that Worldspace had broadcast it’s last song in India on December 31, 2009, the company already having filed for bankruptcy in the US a year ago. I immediately turned on my receiver and as expected, there was no Pink Floyd; just silence.
I felt bad as well as nostalgic. Bad because I didn’t listen to it much during it’s last days. Nostalgic because I had great memories associated with it and there is no alternative to it in India at the present.
Still, I refused to take down the cabling and the antenna placed on the rooftop, braving rain and cold and the harsh Gurgaon summers. I was hopeful that somehow the company would be revived or there would be a different company which would launch services compatible with the existing hardware.
More than a year later, there is no Satellite Radio Service in India and while tidying up my place, I decided to take down the antenna from the rooftop and remove the cabling (due to which I had been unable to fully close my window for years).
From what I can surmise, worldspace failed in India primarily because they didn’t launch a car version of their radio. No one really listens to Radio at home when they have TV and no one would dare to pay to listen to Radio. True blue music lovers are quite scarce, not enough to keep the company afloat. They did team up with airtel DTH TV services for bundled services, but apparently that didn’t help.
However, people do listen to music in their cars. Worldspace should have taken a note from What Sirius and XM have done in the US and teamed up with car  and car stereo manufacturers to put a Worldspace module in mid and high-end car stereos.
Even if Worldspace does return, people would have a hard time trusting them with a pre-paid yearly subscription, having been cut short the last time. I myself am not much fond of Internet Radio, with the lack of dedicated Internet Radio receivers available in this country and unwilling to keep the whole computer running just for radio.
Worldspace, we will miss you. may you R.I.P!!

The Great Gig (In Hard Rock Cafe)

Thursday was one of the greatest evenings I have ever had. Me and goru headed out to Hard Rock Cafe to witness the performance of Think Floyd. Of course expectations were high as it was a Pink Floyd tribute band and we had been waiting for over a week for this. Add to that the un-certainty that we may be thrown out because we were not a “couple”. The band that night chiefly consisted of
ABHISHEK MATHUR : GUITAR & VOCALS
ANINDO BOSE : KEYBOARDS & COMPUTERS
CHINTAN KALRA : DIRECTOR, BASS & VOCALS
SUROJIT DEV : DRUMS 

NICOLAS GIORDANI : SAXOPHONES
ROHIT KULKARNI : GUITAR & VOCALS
VASUNDHARA : VOCA
LS

Let me tell you that Chintan Kalra (of Parikrama fame; pictured above) not only looks like Roger Waters but sings like one too. In fact you can think of him as a bulkier waters or a thinner Springsteen. Anyways, the guy was a showman!!
The gig was to begin at 9:30 but started at 10:30. We were apprehensive because we thought the gig starting late meant a smaller playlist (boy were we wrong). As expected, they began with Shine on you Crazy Diamond, playing all parts perfectly; complete with a Sax solo by Nicholas.
Next came Astronomy Domine. When you go to concerts with bands playing, you expect commercial Floyd songs mainly Coming back to life. Never though did I expect them to play songs from Animals. But they did!! Next came Sheep (at which point I went mad) followed by Dogs (completely Hysterical). They even played Echoes (both 1 AND 2 goddamnit!!) They followed it up with Poles apart from Division bell and the compulsory Another Brick in the wall (all parts) and mother and other songs.

Next came a short break (at which point I realize that they haven’t played a single song from Dark Side of the moon!! When they next came on stage, after a song, my ears are treated to the familiar heart beat.
They start out with Speake to me/Breathe, and play every single fucking song of the album. Time was awesome with an added solo but the greatest surprise of the evening was the great gig in the sky featuring vocals from Vasundhara. Well, I had never thought I would see an Indian woman perform this song live, but she did!! When she began singing, the crown went into hysterics. No one could believe the voice on that girl. She sang the song perfectly with her voice reaching highs and lows un-imaginable by a normal singer.
After that came Money and Us & them (again with Nicholas on the Sax), any colour you like, Brain damage and eclipse. The band finished off with Wish you were here at around 1:30 morning.
By the end of the concert, our throats were completely seized up and we were in a state of shock. Next morning, I could recollect events from the previous night like a dream. Couldn’t believe whether it was true or just a dream. All in all, it was an experience of a lifetime. It makes me shudder to think what would have happened if we had witnessed an actual Pink Floyd performance.
Turn offs: Girls wearing revealing clothes “sitting” on the front row, blocking the view and talking amongst themselves while the band performed. For me, it was sacrilege. Would prefer concerts in a less formal atmosphere, maybe at an open ground.
Another turn off – guys fetching drinks for these girls, pushing their way around while the band was playing, blocking views and disturbing the trance that we were in.
PS: We also learnt about the three “P”s in life we should all yearn to attain!!

Bose® In-Ear Headphones

I recently had the opportunity to use bose in-ear headphones and I was so moved by the experience that I had to write a post.
Firstly, I wanted to know what the hype is about bose products and why they cost so more. Maybe it was this because of which my expectations were high. These bose headphones are good, but not as good as I expected. If you’re looking for noise cancelling phones, these are not for you. They fight very lightly in the ears but are very very comfortable. I normally use the generic headphones that came with my phone, so I like to keep my equaliser to high bass. The bass on the bose is so strong I immediately had to turn my equaliser back to normal. I started off with sad but true by metallica and the depth of the sound blew me away. The song sounded amazing. Next I moved on to marooned from pink floyd’s division bell. Again, amazing, with the bass just a bit high, overwhelming the mid range. Coming back to life sounded amazing, the bass on high hopes
was physically irritating to my skull and I had to lower the volume. Bose also says on the package that the headphones produce “natural sound” which is not entirely true, as the music sounds enhanced in the low range.
To change the genre I turned to Dire Straits. I started off with So far away, continued to Money for nothing and finished off with brothers in arms. Again, normal songs sound good, the songs with already prominent bass tracks just overwhelm the mid-range. By this time i’ve listened to an hour worth of songs but the headphones are barely noticeable and so comfortable that if it wasn’t for the sound or the wires
hanging off, I would not even know they were there. I am normally not a fan of in-ear earphones, but these are really-really good.
Pros:

  1. Excellent sound quality
  2. Excellent comfort
  3. Good Bass
Cons:
  1. Bass sometimes too strong, overpowers mid-range
  2. Better earphones available within same range
If you listen to a song for the music, the clarity of the instruments, there may be better options available. If you want just loud music with thumping bass, this the the thing for you.

I myself have added the Klipsch Image S4 on my wishlist and will be getting these bad boys as soon as I get my pay at the end of the month.

Why I will continue to download pirated music

A few days back, I felt the sudden urge to download a few Dire Strait songs. I’d been hearing about online music stores a lot and felt that for some good songs, less than 1$ is a price worth paying. Come to think of it. A few years back an album cost much more than it does now if you buy and download online. You don’t have to leave your computer and your song is there in a few minutes, and all legitimate. Unfortunately,
I didn’t have such luck.

I started with the tab in windows media player that I always saw, but never used; the media guide. I remember how it always pestered me to select an online store during install. I looked all over in vain but it would only give me youtube links for songs that I searched. No store, no song. I tried ITunes next. After I completed the registration process, I was informed that you can buy music online only if you are in the US, or hold a US credit card. I tried amazon, napster everywhere, I had no option to buy music.

Finally I went to torrentz.com, downloaded the whole album for free in fifteen minutes. I have learnt my lesson and I would prefer to spend my money and waste my time elsewhere.

Brothers in Arms

This is an amazing song I’ve been listening to a lot recently. The song maintains the original Dire Straits‘ bluesy and laid back guitar-based sound. The keyboard portions are reminiscent of the style Richard Wright used around the Dark Side of the Moon era.

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day youll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And youll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
Ive watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

Theres so many different worlds
So many differents suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the suns gone to hell
And the moons riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But its written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

The Wall – Live in Berlin

I had heard of the Pink Floyd Wall Live concert in Berlin for a long time but never got around to watching it. After hearing and reading about it a lot, I decided to watch it. After all it had great names associated with it like Roger Waters, The Scorpions, Bryan Adams and Van Morrison. The Wall Live concert in Berlin is a live rendition of their album “The Wall“. The playlist is almost the same but the similarity ends here. While the album had a very raw, cruel hard rock feeling to it, the concert is more of a Musical Show with the whole orchestra sitting there. It completely lacks the raw hard rock feeling the album had. The album was psychedelic, depressing while in the show, most of the songs have 6-7 singers singing and a 100 piece orchestra playing in the background. It gives the show a soft gentle feel which is completely out of tune with the feeling the album gave. Can you imagine a flute playing anywhere in the Wall movie?

So with great expectations, I start watching the concert. A white limo surrounded by harleys move onto the stage and The Scorpions get off to give a high voltage performance of In the Flesh?. All is going good when the song ends. The next few songs are by different artists and keep getting softer with a Sax Solo in Another Brick in the Wall Part 1. Another Brick in the Wall Part II is by Cyndi Lauper who is in a School Uniform and keeps jumping around as in the Circus and making faces. In the solos, she is behind the guitarists and seems to be trying to smell their asses. I say solos, because there are 3, each almost the same but by 2 guitarist and 1 Synth by Thomas Dolby. The first Solo is something like I would be playing after my first week’s practice of the song on the guitar. At this point, the stage crew start building a huge wall on the stage which gets completed in the songs to come. The song I was looking forward to was Young Lust by Bryan Adams. The song seems really great and Bryan seems to be playing the guitar himself in his trademark kneel back style. Somewhere into the 2nd paragraph of the song, Bryan gets too much into the song and swings his guitar away and lo! The guitar seems to be still playing. After a while we notice the real guitarist standing somewhere behind the edge of the wall in the darkness, with th spotlight on Bryan. I did not understand why Bryan needed to mime the guitaring. He could have just sung the song and be done with it instead of moving his fingers in complicated motions and seeming to concentrate really hard on the guitar. Anyways, I tried forgetting about it and thinking that the song sounded good anyways. Jerry Hall has a brief role as a slut groupie who comes on stage to admire Pink’s imaginary room.Hey You is performed by Paul Carrack and sounds good, though nothing like the original song and no feeling. Comfortably Numb performed by Van Morrison and again, sounds good but nothing like the original. It’s almost kind of soft and it seems you are listening to an opera. The solo is kind of a duet between the two guitarists and in trying to make it different from the original solo, they screw it up completely. The song In the Flesh is again performed by the Scorpions, though this time, it’s very very obvious they’re faking it because the guitars start playing even before they get off their posh limo and throughout most of this song and also Run like hell, they’re just running around and giving each other high 5s while the real guitarists keep on playing in the darkness behind the wall. The Trial is really good performed by mainstream hollywood actors at the end of which, they break down the complete wall ad finish off with The Tide is turning which is not very much unlike We are the world performed by Michael Jackson and various other singers, blind and otherwise.

Overall, the concert is quite entertaining, but fails to capture the original essence of the wall. In fact, it doesn’t even sound anything like Pink Floyd and it would be quite disappointing to the fans of the band and the original album. Roger waters plays nothing in the whole concert and his total singing time is also somewhere around 20 minutes. It would be better if watched from a neutral mindset and no comparisons made to the album. Personally I think that David did a much better job with Pulse tour.