Tuesday, Jan 25, 2005
Tuesday, Jan 25, 2005 |
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Chennai
By Sudhish Kamath
CHENNAI, JAN. 24. Most college rock bands do seem to have an identity crisis of sorts. They don't know if they should try and act like rock-stars or just be the guys-next-door who play good music. At the Western Music finals at Indian Institute of Technology's cultural fest `Saarang' on Monday evening, there was a motley group of eccentric characters. There was one with a Jim Morrison T-shirt, a cowboy hat and a cape like the Undertaker dons in those World Wrestling Federation contests. Another band had this guitarist who slanted his `A's to get an American twang. Yes, a predictable bout of "Wassups" and "Yos" followed. With the light music finals scheduled as the next event, the family audiences that arrived early were in for a culture shock. They kept quiet all right, but their expressions and body language spoke volumes. Needless to say that the judges, guitarist Prasanna and singer David Pascal, had enough happening on stage to keep them entertained. Besides, the music that is. * * *
Thanks to the sponsors, life's been pretty smooth for most callers on campus. With mobile phone signals weak in most areas, the free Hutch phone booths came to the rescue. There's always someone or the other making a call. Ask the student volunteer outside about the response and he'll tell you: "It hasn't been empty since morning." Only local calls allowed. But hey, that's hardly any string. * * *
Talking of mobile phones, there are plenty of signs that say that cameras are not allowed inside the Open Air Theatre — not even camera phones. We have the recent mobile phones-invading-privacy controversies to blame. Anna University recently banned the use of camera phones on campus as a fallout. But with Nokia and Hutch being the main sponsors of the event, the organisers had no choice but to let mobile phones inside the venue. How can you keep technology out of IIT? * * *
But to their credit, the student volunteers in charge of security — in orange caps — did make sure that there was hardly any trouble, but for one stray incident when a band's lead singer literally found that mischief was just a stone's throw away. Unfazed, the band let their music do all their talking and paid back with the same coin making sure the audience got its money's worth. With an attitude that went `an eye for an eye,' the guys hit back with good hard rock for a stone. * * *
The crowd response at the pro-shows was so good that the Choreo Night alone generated ticket sales of Rs.3.5 lakhs. "We had committed an amount of Rs. 5 lakhs towards aid for tsunami victims," says Vijay Jacob, one of the student co-ordinators. "No matter what, we will stick by it."
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