Barista Unplugged

Did you know that Barista (on St. Marks Road) has a live music thingamie every month called Barista Unplugged? Well, when I went last evening (April 29th 2005), I found out that this was the third unplugged session.

There were two "bands" that played: Amplifried and Shickados. The show was supposed to start at 7.00 pm and they started only at around 7.40 or so. No apologies, no nothing. To all bands that play live music, if you are late, apologise to the audience, doesn't matter if it's not your fault. Especially if you're a band that most people have never heard of.

The set started off with the guy from Amplifried playing a song from Creed and then inexplicably stopping (no explanations) and then starting after about 10 minutes. The body language of the guy was amazing. He was so self-conscious of the fact that people were watching him, he tried to be cool, ended up not being so cool. He had a good voice, I'll give him that but with song selections that ranged from the Beatles, to the Stone Temple Pilots, to Green Day, to Maroon Five (which he massacred) and Pearl Jam, you wondered what the guy was trying to do. Alternative rock maybe but it sure as hell wasn't great. Plus, I couldn't figure out if he had a band or not.

The other band that played was Shickados, the has something to do with a place on the moon. They had one guitarist, a bongo player, and a vocalist who also played the bass. They played Hindi music and they were quite good. The vocalist had a nice, deep voice and the guitarist was good. The bongos didn't come through properly because of the mixing (which was terrible) but the band was a definite improvement from Amplifried.

Late into the show, the guitarist played an own composition (comp) dedicating it to his ex-girlfriend, which he called Angel. Good stuff, some dreamy chords and reasonably decent tune. Shickados also played one of their own comps (I forget the name) and it was really good. I talked to the band members later and they told me that they had about seven or eight own comps and that they were all students at an art academy.

I think that if Shickados plays their own stuff, they'll be a band to watch out for. So what if they play Hindi music? If it's good music, I'll listen. Plus, Indi-pop is becoming such a huge market anyway.

Amplifried? Na, I think I'll pass.

PS: Rave magazine was one of the sponsors for this event. Rave brings out 10 issues every year, almost everything to do with music and they cover all genres, even Indian classical stuff. At Rs. 350 for a year's subscription, I think I'll be signing up soon. They also have a free magazine called Rave Rock which is totally devoted to rock (yeah baby) in Bangalore.