BOBBY CASH DID his thing brilliantly again, he asked if he could play again and who am I to say no, this set veered close to rock and roll on several occasions, and the little Elvis tribute made Andiji a happy man.

 

After him we could not find any bands, presumably they were all doing band bonding things in pretty places, or still asleep, so, a Mr D J Fatal kindly got on the stage and spun some classic rock to the chilled out crowd. Very cool! An impromptu jam band got up next who included members of Advaita and rocked, mightily, bless the energy of youth, if I did that now, I would put myself in bed for a few months. Local guys the Silver Rain did their melodic rock ballads thing and probably did Knocking On Heaven’s Door, There were problems with their equipment which kept cutting out one of the guitars, nothing I could do about it, their later set was lots better.

 

Next was the godlike Sajid Ackbar, who made a name for himself a few years ago in Killer Tomatoes, his set accompanied by Abishek and Arpan from Advaita was a breath of fresh air, good tunes played simply and well. Should have been a longer set just as the audience were really settling down into it they finished, but it was the first time they had performed like this and probably simply ran out of practiced tunes.

 

I think it was Orange Street thing up next, again the first time this material had been performed in front of an audience, and their crackling and stop starting was not my fault. Some teething troubles with the machinery, it was spiffing set, would have gone down very well in some places. But, nearly from the start of it people were coming up to me and telling me to cut the power, I thought it was good, interesting. A call of ‘and I bought your albums you cunts!’ was heard from my left, which I thought was funny, and I was just imagining all the wet people huddling together over acoustic guitars eating pizzas up in the restaurant, nice vibes, alternative choices, profit, etc. I was telling people, ‘just give them time, they will do something amazing soon’, and the set did get bigger, but never quite lifted off. Very punk, very cool, the little smiles on their sweet little orange faces when they saw the crowd had gone priceless.

 

Then the Cards, and rain, the Cards were a Boogie Woogie, Rock and Rolly band, very young, very new. Good musicians, especially Mohit on keyboards and Sunny on drums, both also handled themselves very well on the vocals. Rain was unwelcome and wet. I had a panic, the curtain dividing me from them had gone live, our electrician had gone to sleep (actually, I have not mentioned Ramesh yet, he did a great job of rewiring the building to take the current required for the big system) and nobody could hear me.

 

I was not going to stop the pa, but. I needed to disconnect the power from the fused fairy lights. Too late, power went out, all of Dhanaulti, generator was started by one of the boys, Wooden stick, pulled the plug on the lights, all was safe again, just a bit darker. And very, very wet.

 

The Sarvanaasham rocked harder and tighter than the last year, and were possibly the most photographed musicians after Mr Cash. Bal’s voice is clearer, more powerful, Milan has learnt how to play his bass properly, and now guitar duties have been handed over to that big man in the red jacket with the nice smile he is freer to be the rock star front man he is so good at being.

 

Sarvanaasham could actually be stars, if they wrote some good original tunes, or played some less covered covers (try listening to Fugazi, Black Flag, Misfits, Dead Kennedys). They are definitely welcome here anytime, and I would thoroughly recommend seeing them live if you get a chance. Did not quite get the story with their drummer, but Rijul the milkman did a commendable job of backing them up.

 

After that it all went a bit jammy, with the Nomads Frequency starting the proceedings, I liked a good jam, the original idea behind this little stage started as a side stage for the ‘Big Show’ where the musicians could feel free to experiment and mix. Not far from what actually happened this time. Nomads Frequency are also worth keeping an eye on, they have not performed much but are obviously a collective of extremely talented musicians, and so nice, so genuine, the same onstage and off, no act.

 

Bharat Kohli did some loose improvised vocals with a Nomadically Frequential backing, which brought to mind The Fall and Nick Cave. I was jolted back into the real world by a Yankee Screamer in the early hours of the morning that I just could not take, sorry may be a nice guy, but it hurt. I think he was the guy who wrote the bizarre graffiti on the walls of the backstage area. Weird man, although in a mellower moment on the Sunday night/Monday morning he was really quite pleasant on an acoustic guitar.

 

After everyone had left I, Will and Rahul put on some Sabbath and Steppenwolf and danced around the empty arena like lunatics, it was fun but a little sad because we had no girl friends.

 

Then, the Highways turned up and wanted a sound check. Ok, go on. I was falling asleep, just could not see straight, they were having difficulties, I slept for a few hours. Black Stetsons are cool, Bobby Cash, one of Manthan, Silver Rain, a few punters, Naveen, Will and me have style. Varun had his lovely leather one stolen from the back stage area. If the culprit is reading this, please return it you bastard. Also someone stole a load of my beer, which just is not fair.