Yesterday was the much awaited motherjane live show at College of Engineering, Trivandrum. I being a janiac managed to go there at any cost even though I’m a part-time student of CET. Well, there were these volunteers blocking many people, but showing the ID worked. They let me in. At that time there was a program called CET Roadies or something and Rann Vijay was there as judge for selecting Mr & Miss Dhwani. By the way the event’s name was Dhwani 2010. At that point of time, all I could see was John’s drums with chenda over there. So there were some moments of patience for me sitting quietly in a corner as I was alone in the midst of people that I don’t know.
After that program, all the lights slowly turned off. I did sense something. Yes! That’s motherjane. I can see Suraj now! Slowly a familiar music (perccussion) glided through, it was the starting portion of the traditional pandi melam which is used to be played in temples during festivals in central Kerala from where I am from. “Yes, they honor their roots!” I said to myself. Suddenly they burst in to their first song, “Mindstreet”. That was the best version I ever heard. By that time, I came nearer to the front of the stage. The next song was “Blood in the apple”. That felt accurate when compared to the recorded version. After that, Suraj came forward and asked us to sing that “taka takita taka takita”. He started off the song which was energy packed! The next song was “The Tribes of Babel”. I expected that he will tell what it is all about, the amnesty international, peace etc, but he didn’t. The song after that obviously was my favorite: “Broken”. That was amazing! Suraj’s vocals were very good. Baiju’s riffs there as I felt were a bit lazy towards the end of the song, but felt really good after hearing it.
Baiju and Deepu then switched to acoustic guitars and all except Clyde as I could see were sitting in a chair. “Oh! No! They are going unplugged!” I felt bad for a moment as I wasn’t prepared for that! First one on unplugged was “Prison Chains”; Suraj said It was about the work which is a part of life, but not life itself! Aah! Philosophy! Suraj as always is great with that. The first and the second one: “Questions” gone as usual impressing the audience that were sitting in chairs and the next one was a song that I couldn’t sing along even though I know the lyrics! “Disillusioned”! I was disillusioned by that performance! Suraj sung it in a completely different way. I would like to call it a “melodious version” rather than an unplugged version!
The next song was the much awaited “Jihad”, the OST for the movie Anwar. They switched back to rock. Everyone went crazy on this one. Apart from other motherjane songs, this was different. I heard someone say they didn’t use the Indian elements here, but I must say that they are wrong. I believe that the song is influenced by Kerala’s very own “mappila paattu“. An accident happened while performing this song as the lead guitar was turned off due to some processor problems but they managed it well with the rhythm guitar and finished the song nicely. I think after that Baiju directly connected his guitar to the amplifier. The next song was “Fields of sound” I think. I don’t remember exactly.
Now, the next thing I’m going to say is a really shameful experience I had in the same night at the CET campus from the so called “commitee members” of Dhwani. I don’t think the show was arranged like a real rock show as 70% were sitting in chairs, another 10% who claims to be the “committee members” were the closest, who didn’t listen to music, drunk, and were doing random things. If they don’t have the ability to enjoy rock, then they must let the others do it. I met a college band “eclipse alchemy” (death metal) there. We were singing along with motherjane as we know the lyrics. But this wasn’t really entertaining them, who don’t know anything about the band or its songs. So first they tried to make fun of us for singing loudly, and obviously it didn’t work. We started to get a lot of attention, so the next shameless act that they can possibly do was to push me back telling that I’m drunk and is going to create problems. But hell! I wasn’t drunk. I’m a Janiac, and for me music is the purest drug and nothing else. But these shameless, jealous, drunk craps that made a fool of themselves out there don’t understand the spirit of a rock show by motherjane. So they were in front just pretending without knowing a word of the lyrics or music, spitting out something about their branch or something, forcing the real fans to stay behind! The final song was “Karmic steps”. This time Suraj requested all the students to come forward, leaving the “committee members” no choice but to let us go forward, Lot of students gathered infront of the stage and headbanged. After the song, lights turned off and they disappeared. I searched for the band everywhere but couldn’t find them. I felt really bad for not meeting them even though I saw them that close.
Coming back to motherjane, they gave a “fantabulous” performance. I saw many live shows of motherjane on youtube, but this one was 100 times better. So that was my first motherjane live experience. What’s yours?
I believe in Jihad, If love is the weapon! \m/
Update: Forgot to mention about two more songs they performed, “maya” and “maktub”! both sounded authentic!
