Read between the strings - The Tapes

                             

It was during a fortuitous concert in 2005, when the overwhelming drive to play music first appealed to me. It was just a local school band performing that night; a group of messy 16 year olds belting out cover after cover. I then realized that as much as the audience is a part of the music, I found that its creator had a more profound share in its glory.

I had a first-hand taste of the same feeling when I first played on stage. The first song I played with a band was the Bob Dylan classic, “Knocking on Heavens Door”, which was later made popular by GnR. I still get that feeling to this day and I continue to see it in the faces of anyone performing any sort of art on stage. For me, it’s the feeling of absolute control. It’s a euphoria that forces you into submission and yet enables you to be in absolute control of the crowd, of yourself and the thousands of Watts of pure energy blaring from the amp.

Joining The Tapes gave me loads of distinct moments, few of which I remember more vividly than the rest. We had our first gig at IIT-Hyderabad to a crowd of around 150 people. Being our first one, we got a general sense of our standard, shortcomings and what remedies needed to take place. 

The second gig was naturally even better. It was at Durgam Chervu Lake and featured 5 other bands. That night was a just a blur of lights, sound and copious amounts of Red Bull. 

The third one was the day right after the the Durgam Chervu gig and was in Rain. It was a qualifying battle for IIT Kharagpur. After a brilliant performance, we started thinking that this could actually go somewhere. That’s when we realized that every musician’s dream of playing at Hard Rock Café was, with proper prep, not too distant.

We finally got our first big gig at Tooth and Nail Production’s “Indie Night”, at Lost Society. One thing that stood out to me at that gig was that at this point the whole band had come to a state wherein particularly OUR music became second nature to us. There wasn’t much need for thought when it just flowed naturally through your fingers, leaving all your attention on giving a good show visually too. This was no doubt the product of countless hours of practice and a keen eye for detail, which no doubt Rico made sure we inculcated.

 All our hard work  had finally come full circle true when I woke up to a mail from the manager of Hard Rock’s marketing and events asking us to share the bands availability for a headlining slot at Hard Rock on the 20^th of March. This was by far our best one till date. What a gig! The crowd, the energy, the screaming, the applause, the lights and especially the encore all made it a surreal experience.

As I write this on the 21^st, from the comfort of my bedroom, I realized something. It takes time, but it looks like the big guy upstairs eventually does give in to your aspirations.