Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Flesh and Bone in Music

The idea for this post came to me from a colleagues music speakers. She began the morning by playing the big songs of 'Queen' and I said to myself, 'Wish I had seen the man and the band performinge live'.
Last one month has been good to the music lovers of Mumbai. We witnessed the classy 'One Tree Festival' by / with Johnnie Walker, followed by the grand 'Roger Waters' and the 'SOI' concerts last weekend (In fact, I heard myself answering 'How is life?' sort of question from a friend by saying 'Its happening in between musical weekends').
At the One Tree Festival, some kids hired by the organizers came to me with a form to know about the other musicians on my 'wish list' of live acts. The first and the only name that came to my mind in their (the kids) hurry to make me fill up the form was 'Van Morrison' (speaks about my move for the man and his music).
So,today's 'Queen' morning found myself making a 'wish list' of live acts and this is what it looks like. Some from the list is definitely going to go unfulfilled.

- Van Morrison (to hear Van the Man ....to be born again)
- Grateful Dead (Uncle John and his Band...alas!)
- Queen (they defined Grandness in every possible way...alas!)
- Bob Dylan (i hear that he is pretty bad in his live acts...but just to see the man in flesh and blood)
- James Brown (cant ever see him sing and move...alas!)
- Jimi Hendrix (biggest guitar acts ever...alas!...and even SRV ain't around)
- Bruce Springsteen (the original American dude)
- Dave Matthews Band (easily the most talented band around)
- U2 (cant miss them from this list...can i?)
- The Doors (for Mr Morrison's persona, antiques and my teenage days...alas!)

From the above list, I can only see a U2 and Springsteen happening in the near future....what do you guys think? And please share your list too.

20 comments:

Pooja Nair said...

I would be thrilled if cranberries, alanis morrisette, dido and norah jones performed in mumbai.
I wonder how many supporters i have here.... oh well!

meraj said...

am all for norah jones :)

Kaj said...

Doors - now that would've been awesome!!!

I've seen Alanis and Dido live - they're really good! Lenny Kravitz was the best - he came down to the grass.. hyde park.. and played his guitar chilling right where all his fans were... absolutely BRILLIANT!!

svety said...

Yes Doors alright...but Dylans coming to India sometime next mnth I think. Hungama is doing the do - Mumbai & Shillong

vishalc2005@gmail.com said...

i wish i could've managed a glimpse of the real doors in his world; which he created wherever he sang

Shamik said...

If you talk about live rock acts, for me, it would be watching the Who live.. If you've heard their 'Live at Leeds' CD, well, then I wont have to defend myself.. Somewhere in the middle of their 10 minute 'Magic Bus' performance Pete starts hearing his guitar echoing from accross the hall and that bastard starts jamming with his echo.. Keeps on going at it for a good 3-4 mins.. And the first time I figured that out, I was just ':o'ed.. Emoticons.. They do describe emotions best.. :) Seriously I'm ready to be a guinea pig in any time travel experiment if they agree to put me into that hall at Leeds that night.... A plea to all the mad scienists worldover..

If you want to really get down to coming up with a list..
- Who..
- Stones.. I know at 80, if I'm alive and still can smile, I'd be lying on my death bed and smile for the fact that in this life I saw them live..
- Phish.. Something that is quite possible and if u stay in the states for even as less as a month, they'll come and play somewhere close to you.. :)
- Dave Mathews Band.. they're good..
- Hendrix.. I'm sure his Woodstock performance must've been a nightmare for the rest of the 'pretending' guitarists present there...
- Dylan.. Yea.. Just to see the man in flesh and blood..
- Clapton.. I read this review of a Clapton concert in Moscow written by a guy who essentially thinks that Clapton is no substance and just hype... And he starts the review with like, "I gave myself a few days to 'cool down' after the show, before I could start thinking straight again.. :)
- Dead.. Tripsters.. Hipsters.. Our fellow neighbourhood totally unpretentious freindly musicians..
- Springsteen.. Hipster.. Our fellow working class pretentious musician.. Well, we love him anyway, dont we.. :)
- Marley.. I think his concerts would have had been a chilled up party..
- Any good blues musician.. Mumbaikars, u ungrateful @@#%^&*()...

Brown Weed said...

abhi toh sunna hai ki 25th march types ko Shakira aa rahee hai!! whooo hooo!!!

meraj said...

dylanman happening here??? we are all waiting...
thanks for adding 'the who' and 'marley' to the list, Shamik...yeah they are an essential.

Brown Weed said...

whoo hoooo!!

Brown Weed said...

(and add Joni Mitchell to your list)

meraj said...

To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings. La La La

Anonymous said...

well, till then you've gotta be satisfied with Sepultura and Aerosmith and Maiden ............

but this weekend is the film festival + a nice play ............

Pooja Nair said...

Looking forward to both!!!

vishalc2005@gmail.com said...

In the same vein, but in a somewhat dissimilar ambiance, I had the good fortune to witness zakir Husain and amzad ali khan in concert, first such occasion for me, hadn’t been to any concerts on Indian classical music earlier; I rather fancy music in private, so I wasn’t really sparkling with enthusiasm. by the end of the concert, I was ecstatic, the spontaneity, the unbounded zeal and the gratification and delight the two greats derived from their performance, even after so many years of adulation, had me wondering about the absolute insignificance of anything at all,… Does it make sense? I suppose many of us wud have felt a void, faced with extraordinary magnificence.

Hemishha's Observation Deck said...

hey meraj.
add daler mehndi himesh reshamya atif aslam to the list.
hey r u kidding u were going to add kya. m waiting for all those ppl u guys r talking abt. cause i just love moojic. i have my reservations. like the ppl i listed above. cant stand them did i mention mika.
this is the mouse squeeking .

meraj said...

mr hunter, am sure this will be the beginning many more indian classical concerts for you :)

dear mouse, like your squeaks :)

Brown Weed said...

shakira: tickets for 2650 and 3650!!!
(holy cow)

Anonymous said...

To all self-deprived souls,

Here's a short preview (or should it be post-view, oh that's review :)) to what I experienced yesterday .......

1. The Near East: An extremely artfully made film about a bungling loser (based in Spain) who finds himself in a situation where he has to console his brother's Bangladeshi immigrant girl-friend (who has just got pregnant), while the brother chickens out, running away from town with his present wife. The bungler observes the girl later being admonished severely by her father, and then bungles up and tells the father (who believes that he is the dad of the foetus, as he had seen them together) that he will take up his responsibilities and marry the girl. Soon a circus erupts with him having to convert to Islam, follow all the customs, fake a marriage, handle the girls' family restaurant business when the father gets a heart-attack on discovering the truth of the brother-brother exchange, and later control his brother (who after having lost his own wife as she found out about the girl-friend and baby) returns to woo the Bangladeshi girl again. But alls well that ends swell. Extremely well made, with plenty of soulful music integrated with dexterity into the zig-zagging plot.

2. Merry Christmas: A master-piece played out in 2 trenches during World War I, one for the Germans, the other shared by English, French & Scots. It's christmas eve, both sides are partying mildly, skeptically alert to surprise attacks from the other side. But then when the Germans loudly applaud the bag-piper (from their own trench) and then sing along the next carol, both sides slowly but surely disband their skepticisms, emerge from their trenches and have a heart-felt celebration in the middle. The plot ends realistically with all of those being involved being transferred and punished by their respective generals who learnt of the joint exercise a few days later. Once again the music was awesome and perfectly integrated with the plot. But two scenes that I must mention: (i) when the two sides come together in the middle, a cat ambles up to the gathering, so a Frenchman exclaims "Ah, here comes Nestor", and a German responds "No, that is Felix", "No, no, Nestor. See, here come Nestor come", "No, see come Felix come", but obviously the cat responds to both!! (ii) There is one particular soldier who can sketch much better than he can write, so he maintains a diary of sketches of the day's happenings. The end credits are superimposed onto images from that diary, so you sort of re-live the movie with soulful music. That sent me on one of the best trips of my life.

anyways, all is not lost ........ you can still join in, 4 days left ......... IMAX wadala, 4 shows daily, 4 screens in parallel, 3rd show starts at 4:30 p.m., 4th show starts at 7:00 p.m. ........ 500/- registration

meraj said...

Man...Merry Christmas sounds like some movie. Will keep a lookout for the DVD.

Let me see if I can make it for some shows. Thanks for the info!

Brown Weed said...

so apparently there's a 10% discount if you get hold of someone having an HSBC credit card..

(found)

whooo hoooo!!!