Two great concerts and three hours of horrible horrible noise

Thursday: I went to Shisha to see the Blues band  Smokestack perform. They put on a great show. Played mostly originals . The bassist took over on vocals for a few songs in avery BB King -esque voice with the typical BB style “Oh Lordy Lord!” wails in the middle. They also broke into ‘Whipping post’ all of a sudden in the middle of their original. They were joined by Koko from the awesome rock band Agni (and sadly also from the horrible sell out indi-pop band Agnee) and the gig got even more brilliant.

Friday : Went to Mazda hall in Sardar Dastur primary school to watch the Auer Quartet (named for renowned violinist Leopold Auer) from Hungary perform. The concert was organised by the Poona Music society in association with the Hungarian Informaion and Cultural centre. The String quartet  played three compositions:  one by Joseph Haydn , one by Laszlo Lajtha and one by Felix Mendelsohn. The show was brilliant. There were no mikes so it was all natural sound. And the acoustics at Mazda hall are excellent. Had a great time . Also the concert costs only 20 bucks . So if your free next Friday do drop by . It’s totally worth it.

Saturday: My friends convinced me to go to Flags (which is now a lounge) with them on Saturday night. And as soon as I entered , I got the ‘what the hell was I thinking??’  feeling. Three hours of trance and rap and other ridiculous crap people like to  call music.  Three of the worst hours of my life. Never ever again.

 

The Academy has lost it!

Thats it!  Now I’ve officially lost all faith in the oscars. Slumdog won the best picture oscar where it should definitely have gone to either frost/Nixon or Curious Case.  Danny Boyle getting the best Director Oscar was ridiculous especially when a genius like David Fincher was nominated for an absolutely brilliant film.

I have no issues with AR Rehman winning the Oscar for best , but i feel Jai Ho most surely didn’t deserve the award. I learnt in a recent quiz  that Subhash Ghai had rejected the song for use in Yuvvraj. Imagine . An idiot like Ghai an figure out that the song has nothing in it , and the academy cant. O saaya was a much better song and  definitely should have got the award.

I do have issues with AR Rehman winning thr award for Best Score. Slumdog? Best Score? Are you kidding me? It was horrible!Yuck!

Slumdog winning the best Adapted screenplay over Curious case? <Insert large collection of expletives here>

I’m also kinda pissed about Wall.E getting the award for best animated feature. I hated it . Couldn’t get past the first half hour! Kung Fu Panda deserved the award.

Sheh! The academy has gone the Film fare way. Most popular film wins.

 

Lets get a few things straight

Slumdog Millionaire is NOT that great a movie. Danny Boyle is NOT a good director. Anil Kapoor is NOT a good actor. Dev Patel is NOT even an actor. Jai Ho is NOT a good song.

I cannot believe that movie won 4 Golden Globes. There is really othing that would merit such accolades. Considering that history shows that the Oscars and the Globes generally reward the same movies , I’m appaled that Slumdog has actually got a good chance to win the Oscar. Imagine.  Citizen Kane didn’t get the Best Picture Oscar , and Slumdog may just win. Sheh!

 

Almost Shakti

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 !

 

Tull!

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.

 

People who attend concerts

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”

 

Another Huge RIP

While I have been wasting my time in college with pointless submissions and oral exams , bad things have been happening in the world.  I just found out that legendary drummer Mitch Mitchell passed away two days ago.

Here’s a nice picture tribute .

 

A huge RIP

Legendary keyboardist Richard Wright is no more.

 

A few movies

I’ve seen quite a few movies over the last fortnight or so. Here are some thoughts on some of them.

Sarkar Raj: I quite liked it. It wasn’t nearly as good as the earlier one , but good nonetheless. The acting performances were brilliant. Amitabh especially was amazing. My only complaint would be that RGV has neglected the story a bit and given way too much attention to the camera work and technical stuff. The odd angles do get a little overbearing after  a while.

Hancock: The movie’s tagline says “thers su[perheroes and then there’s Hancock” Quite a few  people have not liked Hancock . It is quite a different movie. For one , it’s realistic and does not have outlandish villians show up from nowhere. Also the fact that Hancock’s character is so flawed gives the movie a very unique touch. I really liked the movie. Will smith and Charlize Theron have put in really good performances. The comic elements in the movie are memorable and the action is about as expected. The explanation given for the power they have is also reasonably good.

Kung Fu Panda : When a movie has Jack Black , Jackie Chan and Dustin Hoffman in it , its gotta be good. Make that movie animated and it becomes awesome. I loved it. I’d rather not give away the jokes and stuff. The movie is great. Watch it.

And now eagerly awaiting The Dark Knight

 

RIP : Bo Diddely

The blues legend is no more.