Goa - Early 2010
Posted by Jagadeesh on Tuesday, July 6, 2010
We started early this year, 2nd and 3rd Jan for a back-to-back concert in Goa. At Victor Hugo's Goa Chitra Museum on the 2nd and Armando's Jazz Heritage on the 3rd. Till we flew in to Goa, we had no clue of the first concert, originally supposed to be in a lounge close to Vasco and then suspense. But Jaydev, the organiser had his reasons and pulled off a last minute show at Victor Hugo's with help from Skitter and her team. We landed at the venue at 7p.m as the taxi driver couldn't find the venue. Finally when we reached, it was an eye opener to see a charming heritage of old Goa resurrected and preserved by its curator Victor Hugo with a compact amphi theatre tucked in - by this time Kenny was proving himself to be our in-house audio expert in getting the eq right on the modest sound that was available. An extremely humid night in a pastoral setting - all of us including Karthik had to battle dozens of tiny curious winged visitors in between solos - german trumpeteer Mathias who was accompanying us pulled out his trumpet just as we landed in Goa, at the airport standing next to a billboard which had the picture of a trumpet player - amusing onlookers at the airport! Mathias played some great solos on our tracks especially Caravan and Madhuri's fine rendition of My Funny Valentine even if he was distracted by some romantic notions. Prakash's slide guitar technique of seamlessly switching from a nashvilleesque sound to a complete Hindustani tone is really wonderful! It was great to perform our special brand of fusion in Goa, traditionally thought to be a bastion only for jazz and other forms of western music - a myth which I think is disintegrating as newer and more experimental forms of music such as ours is gaining acceptance. We signed off our two day tour of Goa at Armando's Jazz heritage in Campal, Panjim. Perhaps the highlight of our 2 hour set was a feedback from a member of the audience - "what you guys played was fusion, not jugalbandi like all the 'others'! Heightened by the performance and the ever-friendly Goan spirit and a friendlier media, we were in a delirious state till early morning at Miramar beach. Jaydev and Skitter and the rest of the team deserve a big round of applause for putting together a very challenging 2 day tour. We'd love to perform in Goa again - who doesn't?