random acts of the mindless

I'm on a rock god overdose right now. 2 god bands in the space of 5 days! Tull and Heep!! it is unbelievable!!! Been looking forward to this ever since I got to know of their plans for India a month or so ago. Been eating, drinking, and sleeping this! And then went numb when it finally hit me...its slowly sinking in now...

It started out with Jethro Tull's performance in IIMB on the 3rd of Feb. After almost 40 years since they formed, the band that named itself after a sixteenth century inventor of the seed-drill can still rock hard...and how! Ian Anderson is a showman par excellence and on Friday he showed us why he is considered to be a living god of rock. This guy has an amazing sense of humor and although his voice understandably shows signs of age, his flute still carries the same power and charisma that has become a hallmark of this great band. Starting off with My Sunday Feeling from their very first album This Was they belted one classic after the other. We got what we had come for, Thick as a brick, Bouree, My God, Jack in the Green, Budapest...heck! we wanted every song they played! They also performed a Tullified version of a couple of Mozart compositions to commemorate the 250th birth anniversary of the great composer calling it 'Moe's art'! They had saved Locomotive Breath for the encore. When they finally left the stage, we were too dazed to move. It was only after the security and the police started blowing their whistles rudely in our ears that we came back to reality. This was one concert which we would be talking about for a very long time...so brace yourselves for it!

But the fun didn't end just then...come Wednesday we were there to witness the greatest concert of our lives yet, URIAH HEEP!!! Tull was god-sent but it was Heep we were waiting for. Even before we got married, Cinni and I used to drive around for hours with Heep blasting from the car stereo. She claims that the band's music was one of the influencing factors in her marrying me! She even went on record stating that to the NDTV lady interviewing us in the concert. Anyways, we were so excited about the concert that we landed there almost 3 hours before the show. That paid off as the gates opened at 7PM and we were among the first to get in. Got the front row center! The show was kicked off at 8 PM with the band singing some of their newer numbers but the crowd really warmed up to them when they played the classic Stealin'. The classics really got the crowd going - Sweet Lorraine, Rain, The Wizard, Gypsy, Free Me, Look at yourself and of course July Morning, one the greatest rock songs of all time! We were in a trance; it took a while for it to sink in that we were actually seeing the gods perform right in front of us! Bernie Shaw's powerful voice was able to do justice to the classic Heep songs originally sung by Byron and Lawton. It was incredible to see Mick, Kerslake and Bolder wield their instruments with the same effect as they had nearly 30 years ago! Although Phil Lazon was great on the keyboards, he is no Hensley who was sorely missed but maybe it was not entirely Phil's problem, there were no Hammond or Moog to lend authenticity to the old songs and the sound system was a few notches below what you'd expect in a concert of this magnitude. But that notwithstanding, it was a show to behold. Heep performed and we melted away! They mopped up the screaming crowd with a stupendous encore consisting of Bird of prey, Lady in Black and Easy Livin'. When they finally said good night, the crowd went wild screaming for more but the guardians of our morals, the local police started blowing their whistles with gusto and started shoving people rudely out of the arena. After the show we hung around backstage with a few other die hard fans hoping that band would come and meet us but they just piled into a Qualis and zipped away and we slowly hauled our aching bodies back to the car and headed home.

One thing I observed and appreciate in both these shows was that the majority of the crowd was very knowledgeable about the bands and their music. There were forty-somethings with graying hair and youngsters in the same arena rocking away to the music that paved the way for today's bands. We saw a very elderly gentleman with none of his original teeth left swaying to Tull's songs with the help of his walking stick! That sight left us feeling warm in our hearts at being a part of this great music loving fraternity. We met some real old timers who had been to Heep's first concert in India way back in 1984! Of course there were uncles and aunties who were there because they got free passes for the show and there were those young pseudo-rockers who were there just because there was a concert happening in their town. They had no idea about the band and were wondering what we were so worked up about. But knowingly or unknowingly they have exposed themselves to some real rock music which hopefully would lead them to discover more.

2 great band's in the span of 5 days! It just boggles the mind to think that we were there...WE SAW HEEP LIVE MAN! We are still soaking it in. Every time I turn around, my neck hurts but that's like a trophy I got for being front and center at the concert of one of my gods! Last night I slept a contented man.