Ustad Zakir Hussein , Shankar Mahadevan , and U. Srinivas playing together. Almost Shakti . Unlike Vasantotsav last year , monkey wasn’t in the line up . This time Taufiq Qureshi was on Percussion and V. Sevaganesh was on the kanjira .
The show started as expected with a prayer . Then they played great jazz piece composed by Loy Mendonca (though some phrases did seem mildly plagiarised from John Coltrane). Then went on to a jugalbandi between U. Srinivas and Taufiq Qureshi which was awesome . U. Srinivas showed off this time. Man! He’s brilliant! Taufiq put on his usual entertaining show. Then all the musicians came back and played the same piece they played at Vasantotsav last year. As expected it was amazing . The came the Selvaganesh solo. Then the absolutely mindblowing Zakir Hussein solo. The show ended as always with ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram‘.
Some mentionable points:
The Law College ground sucks as a venue for a classical concert. There are too many buildings around and the echo is very irritating.
The sound guy sucked.
There were too many Semi-Pseudo Fans . And obviously they were sitting behind us. One excerpt from the (very loud) conversation going on behind us (translated into English , the original Marathi is probably even more irritating):
Idiot 1: (during the Taufiq Srinivas jugalbandi) Which of these is Taufiq Qureshi ?
Idiot Superidiot : Stupid ! He’s the one playing the guitar!
Another example:
Idiot: (while selvaganesh is going crazy on the kanjira) Please stop now. My hands are hurting just looking at you.
Other Idiots laugh loudly as if this was actually funny.
Another example:
Idiot: (while jazz piece is going on) This is okay. But have you heard ‘Nothing else matters’?
Seriously they should do a brain scan or something before letting these people in !
It’s been ages since I’ve attended a good concert and what a way to end the drought. Jethro Tull live with anoushka Shankar .
The show had three parts. The first one was a solo set by Anoushka shankar . The second was Jethro Tull playing their stuff and the third was a jugalbandi .
Anoushka Shankar put on a great show for the first half an hour . She played one composition in Raag Jog and one in Raag Panchamsagar (which was composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar).
Then Jethro Tull came on. I thought the vocals of Ian Anderson were a bit off today. Didn’t have the same effect as before. BUt the rest of the band was brilliant. They played a lot of their old stuff . They played ‘Living in the past’ , ‘My Sunday Feeling’ and ‘Heavy Horses’ . They also played R. R. Kirk’s jazz classic ‘Serenade to a cuckoo’ .Then came ‘Too old to rock and roll, too young to die ‘ ( which was dedicated to Sir Mick Jagger). They then played an abridged 6 minute version of Thick as a brick which was brilliant. They ended their set with ‘Aqualung’ .
The third set was by far the best. Jethro Tull and Anoushka Shankar played together . The first two songs were new compositions . One was titled ‘Tea with Anoushka ‘ and the other was a very folksy , beautiful track called ‘Celtic Craddle’ . Then they played an awesome version of ‘Mother Goose’ (another very old song). They then played ‘Bourree’ , originally composed by Johann Sebastion Bach . Anoushka Shankar was brilliant on this one. The combination of sitar , flute and block flute was awesome to hear. Then they played a track from Anoushka Shankar’s album ‘Breathing Underwater’ . They then thanked everyone and walked off.
Just as the Pseudo fans had reached the door , the lights went out and John O’ Harra played the iconic keyboard intro to ‘Locomotive Breath’ . The crowd went berserk . Everyone was on their feet . All the musicians (including Anoushka Shankar’s sath musicians ) came on stage and played a long and arguably the best version of ‘Locomotive Breath’ ever played. The one song was better than the rest of the concert put together. Absolutely amazing. I can’t say anything else . I’ve run out of words to say how brilliant it was.
I’ve been to two concerts in the last 5 days . Before I post about them , I feel its necessary to write about the kind of people who go to concerts. These people can be broadly be classified into 4 types :
1. The Real Fans: These people really like music . They know about music and would go to almost any length to see a good concert. They hate people who come just for the heck of it . Most importantly the sole reason a Real Fan goes to a concert is for the music , not for a chance to show off or to impress someone.
2. Pseudo-Fans : These people have heard of the band and like music in general but are not really into the act that is playing. All of these people have listened to the ‘Best of ‘ album before coming to concert and that’s about it.
3. Semi-Pseudo Fans: These people haven’t even heard the best of album . Their rationale for attending the concert is ” I like Metallica , therefore I must see Zakir Hussain” .
3a. Over Zealous Semi Pseudo Fans : These are a subset of Semi Pseudo fans and are without doubt the most irritating creatures in the world . They not only come to concerts just for the heck of it, but they also screw up the concert for the Real Fans (and given Murphy’s Laws they always land up near a Real Fan in a concert) by screaming irrelevant stuff, making totally WTF comments , moshing in case of rock gigs and asking the Real Fans whats going on. eg: A guy shouting ‘Nothing Else Matters ‘ at a Roger Waters Concert.
4. Posers: These people have no interest in music whatsoever . Generally these people are rich and can afford to go to concerts in spite of not liking it. They go along to concerts only to show their friends that they are not total idiots who don’t listen to music . Going to a concert is also sometimes seen as a cool thing to do. Some people like to just say to people that they went to a big concert. This gives them the opportunity to show they are better than those who didn’t go. Best way to spot a poser is that they are driven by stereotypes and think all the stuff the newspapers say about music is true. eg ” What? You didn’t see Iron Maiden perform yesterday? Dude ! You missed an awesome gig. The crowd was great …all the moshing and screaming . And the band played some famous songs. Though I have to agree with Times of India that the band from Rock On is probably better”
-I totally agree with the decision to set up a new organisation to handle terror attacks in India. But since our leaders are bound to politicise the issue , the handling of this new body should be totally independent of politicians . They shouldn’t know anything about the workings of this body . I’d say don’t even tell them who heads the body. Just give them one contact who’ll act as messenger between the government and this body. We should also make a constitutional amendment to hand over absolute power to this body in the event of an attack and the politicians shouldn’t be allowed to make public appearances or give interviews /addresses without the express permission of this body. NO red tape . NO political involvement. It should be as simple as that. There’s a terror attack – get the politicians out , get the sensible people in charge.
-Screw fundamental rights. Put a gag order on all divisionist parties and their members for life. These people are insane . In fact don’t even let them make public appearances. And for goodness sake arrest them when they don’t comply with these rules (as they surely won’t) Why the hell are these people not already in jail?
-Hold talks with Pakistan in full view of the world. Tell them the location of all the wanted terrorists living there and ask them to arrest them . If they go round the issue of committing to making arrests (Like shah Mehmood Qureshi did in his NDTV interview) , say it like it is: This means one of two things: 1. They lied about helping out against terror and are accomplices to terror. or 2. They are cowards and are scared to take the necessary action.
India Inc is set to lose Rs50,000 /- crore because of this attack not to mention huge losses in terms of Human capital (some of the people who dies were after all some of the most successful people in India). NDTV also reports that India may lose the next Cricket World Cup scheduled to be held in 2011.
After the horrific terror attack on Bombay and the 195 deaths it caused , we have another tragedy.
Barely have the funeral pyres of the heroes of Bombay stopped burning that our politicians have begun pointing fingers at each other. Comments like “Failure of entire Government” , “We would have handled it better ” etc etc are doing the rounds. You’d think that such a huge attack would bring about some unity if not forever , at least for a week. It sucks that we have nobody in the government capable of seeing that now we need people to work together.
Sometimes I seriously think we should just let the armed forces handle the running of the country . After all they are the only ones who care about serving the people . Our leaders just care about politics . Who will like to hear what ? Who will vote which way? If i appoint a dalit or a muslim to this post would more people vote for me? These seem to be the only questions going through their heads while our brave soldiers and innocent hostages are dying at the hands of terrorists.
