STEP INTO MY WORLD – INDEPENDENCE ROCK XXII !

Monday, 10 Sept 2007

As I settled in the local train in the morning to reach office late again, I heard a “Pakiza” song playing on someone’s mobile. The musical notes floating in the air, I closed my eyes to not stare into the eyes of the guy standing in front of me and suddenly I saw Parikrama screaming,” Can’t somebody hear me , I am screaming from so far away!”. I opened my eyes and Pakiza was crooning again. I preferred Parikrama. I closed my eyes again, ready to lose myself in a world which had lasted for just two days after a wait of a full one year! Close your eyes, guys…….and Step into my World…..

DAY 1, 08 Sept 2007

The crowd was screaming when we entered the venue on Saturday.It was I-ROCK XXII and some band had just finished their rendition of “ Killing in the name of!”. We had missed it and Akshat scolded me in sanskrit for having lingered outside for too long. Oh! Yes, we were three guys, Me , Akshat and Verma, my college friends! They had come from Pune for the fest, like many others who came from as far as Bangalore and Delhi. Ok, lets cut it short, we found a spot a stand somewhere, and the band performing was called “Caesar’s Palace” and in my humble opinion it had one of the best Lead singer I have heard in an Indian Band. His voice was smooth, loud and steady. I don’t remember which songs they performed , though.(You will see throughout this post that there are a lot of things I don’t remember :P)All I remember is that their original song was nice, but we were not there for all those bands competing that night, of which I think Scribe won. We were there for PARIKRAMA ! I waited with baited breath as they set up their gig on stage. I wanted to scream and sing ”But it rained” with them, that is why I paid the bugger sitting at the gate for. It turned out that they had much more in store than just the one song I knew!

The performance started with an Iron Maiden cover, and soon turned to originals, which is where, I believe, their real talent is. They performed “But it rained”, of course, with the whole crowd singing along. That, my friend, takes u to another world, the place in my head I was talking about, when the whole crowd sings along, arms swaying like black fire on a background of pink, purple , blue and red fog. One guy on stage commanding us all, introducing us to our own feelings, taking us to new places inside us, places we have never been to, doors get unlocked, every guy, every face reaching inside, touching the bliss inside him. For those five minutes…..you become yourself!



All this in just one song!

Then there was this song they had composed for Sam and Frodo(LOTR 1) called “ Am I Dreaming”, and boy did I fall in love with it! I don’t know about Akshat and Verma, but I got lost in the words halfway through the song. I will try to find out if they have released the track. The real show stealer was their rendition of “Open Sky” instrumental, in which their Violin player, Imran Khan, changed everything! Just now, this whole unruly crowd was in a moshpit, banging their heads to Scribe, and now this beast of unruly headbangers had been tamed by a Violin and a Tabla. Watch the video attached and get mesmerised!



Then we all had to go home, coz it was 10 pm and our mighty government thinks that its bad to listen to music after 10. “C’mon babies, tuck yourselves in your pinky beds!" "And you Hairy guys with guitars, Go back to wherever u came from!”. I wonder why don’t they close down offices after 10pm, why don’t they come with cops when we work day and night waiting for I Rock to happen! “Nothing wrong in working, just don’t rock your heads after 10”

Anyways, I slept , trying to pass the time until it was 5:30pm the next day. One call from my comrades, and I was in a train, chugging towards the venue again!

DAY 2 : The Dinosaurs of Rock

This day was what I had really been waiting for,the day when all the oldies of Indian Rock, or as they call themselves, The Dinosaurs of Rock were to perform, but ,alas , it didn’t turn out to be as glorious as it was in I-ROCK XX(twenty).

There were awesome performances of classics, but what was getting on my nerves was the unruly crowd. The bottle throwers were taking the glory away. Some of them were still suffering from the aftermath of Pin Drop Violence’s performance (read "Big Violent Moshpits"), and all the people who were waiting for the Classics were suffering because of them. I tried to block them out of my head and was awarded with an awesome rendition of “Another Brick in the Wall”. There’s something about these Dinosaurs which most of the current Indian bands just don’t have. These guys play with such energy and passion as if, at that moment, they are living every word that is sung, every note that is played. Every moment of the performance makes u jump out of your slumber and shake your head at every pull at the guitar strings, every beat of the drums. The song rocked! , and everyone who had ever loved rock, sang each word with the Dinosaur on stage!(by the way, I don’t remember his name . Watch the Video and see his bald head shine with sweat as hundreds of hands sway in front of him!)


Pink Floyd Rules!

What suddenly surprised me was when Farhad Wadia (see, I remember his name!) began to sing “Time” (Pink Floyd). It hit me like a bolt! I mean, this song was one of my favourites during college time, but I had not heard it for quite some time now, and they didn’t play the initial music, for we would have guessed the song then, He just banged in with ”Ticking Away the Moments that make up a Dull Day…” ! It hit my head like a hammer, my whole college life just yanked at me so hard that I jumped up and screamed to Akshat,” AWESOME SONG MAN ! AWESOME !” and screamed every word of the song at the highest decibel I could cough out! It was a pink floyd song, a mellow one at that, but I screamed......! Sometimes one just lets it out, and this was one of those times.

Then, there was the star of the evening –“Gary lawyer” ‘s turn to sing us some “The Doors” songs. The crowd jumped up and down with “the MOjo rising”, ”keeps on rising”
And as soon as I started shouting for more Jim Morrison’s songs, we were suddenly and politely reminded of the cops waiting outside to escort us out( as if we are sort of criminals or something). It is 10pm already and a bunch of harmless guys who want to listen to a few classics is suddenly perceived as a bunch of criminals who must be put to their beds RIGHT NOW! If it was a damned Sonu Nigam concert they would have allowed a few more minutes of ”Bijuria Bijuria”!The cops might even have danced with it, but this was ROCK, and that’s not allowed. Sometimes people are just afraid of something coz they don’t understand it……but we had to leave.Afterthought: The organisers (Farhad Wadia) should have given Gary Lawyer more time, could have cut the others down.


Finally, I opened my eyes.My train had reached Mahalakshmi station, that’s where I get off, and I had to open my eyes and come back to this mundane reality again. Somethings never change (Akshat would know why I said this),
It was great while it lasted, a few disappointments did occur which I didn’t mention here because no one forgets the bad times, it’s the good times that need to be reminded! :) but I didn't want to leave that world-in-my-head thing behind, so I decided that I will put it on my blog, so that these memories may live on till next year, when we’ll come back to I-ROCK...... to meet ourselves again !























edit: We did get to chant"Now you do what they told ya...! on the second day! so, we didn't miss "Killing in the name of", so, I guess, no more snaskrit from Akshat! :)
Also he provided all the videos and images for this post, so thank him and head over to his profile for more I Rock vdos!
http://www.youtube.com/user/Akshat
and if the camera is too shaky to comprehend anything at all, then Curse him ;)