iRock XXI, looking back

Its been exactly an year since the greatest show in the country to celebrate rock n’ roll in the country happened. Just thought i’ll recount everything for those who missed it and to make sure they wont miss it this time around. \\m/

IRock XXI was special for me, because it was my first gig. I became a die hard rock fanatic after that \\m/urderous day..thats why i felt the need to recount it.

When I entered, Demonic Resurrection had almost finished playing its set and I could listen to only one song of theirs.. they were sounding quite good and it was a pity I had to miss their set. Mumbai traffic sucks in more ways than one…

Then came Sceptre and what followed was the best part of the whole gig. Thrash Metal insanity at its finest! They opened with a brilliant cover of Metallica’s Fuel. They then played their hugely popular OC, Charred. Hell was well and truly unleashed… and what I witnessed was probably India’s first Wall Of Death… take a look for yourself.

Wall Of Death, Nuclear, Charred, Metallica One cover

They then went on to play some more of their OC’s and ended the day with a manic cover of Metallica’s One. The mosh was seriously deadly. The first aid counter saw some activity thanks to Sceptre… Sadly, we wont be having any of this Sceptre madness in this year’s IRock. Boo.

Then came Them Clones and played some RATM covers and OC’s. I paticularly liked their song “My life”. After this high energy act came the Dinos of Rock and they played their set of rock classics. Nothing spectacular except Shazneen’s beautiful vocals.

IRock XXII is just around the corner with the Delhi and Bangalore leg already underway. The bands for the headlining day this time are the same as last year, except that there’s PDV in place of Sceptre and DR. This time is gonna be definitely bigger and better than whatever we’ve witnessed with some really big ticket sponsors. Chitrakut Grounds, Andheri. Dont miss it for your life!

Gig review - Independence Jam @ Musicians Mall

60 years its been since we’ve been free from the clutches of the British, 60 years of Independence…. and what better way for a rocker to celebrate than bang their head at a gig!!! So off we go again to the only place Mumbai’s left with regular gigs these days, Musicians Mall.

Delays mean that the gig starts almost an hour late. Zohak opens the day with their OC’s to follow it up with Machine Head’s Davidian and Sepultura’s Troops of Doom. I find the sound much better than last time. The vocals were more audible this time and so were the guitars. But they had to face the brunt of the bad sound management, with the mic going off at times.  I wanted them to play some more but the circumastances didnt allow them to. Somehow, they’d become the recce run for the other bands.

I, somwehere in the back of my mind think that Zohak aint feeling like they felt at the SPACE gig. Everyone on the band is great, skillwise, but they’re just not feeling right. Maybe it was the delay or the sound, I do not know. Zohak certainly need to up their ante.

Up next were Black, and after a thorough sound check they were ready to go. And they did, right from the word er… go. They felt really good and put up an amazing performance. They played their OC’s and covered Pearl Jam’s Even Flow. Fantastic stuff. I liked their set.

Their rhythm guitarist was missing but their crazy vocalist more than made up for it. He swooned like a drunkard, played around with the mike stand as though it was some kind of a rag doll and burnt the whole place up when he got a cordless mike with splitting the crowd into two and other such insane antics.

Cirkles were up next. Cirkles is Teemeer’s( Sceptre, Lead guitars and vocals) acoustic rock band. Just acoustic guitars and light percussions. In essence, unplugged versions of heavy metal songs which we’ve grown up listening. It sounds really sweet, you know. You have to listen to believe it.

After the sound check, Tim made everybody sit down and what followed was the best part of the gig. They did Metallica’s Turn The Page, Stone Sour’s Through Glass, Slipknot’s Vermillion Pt2 and finally Megadeth’s Tornado Of Souls.What fun! I enjoyed it all!

Time for the last band of the day, Zygnema. They were sounding a lot better this time and were restraining themselves so as to not create a mosh. Jimmy, the vocalist, was bouncing up and down the place as they belted out their originals one after the other. They ended their setlist with a brutal cover of Sepultura’s Territory. No one got the crowd moving as Zygnema that day.

Also, I must give special mention to Jimmy, Zygnema’s vocalist. He lent his voice for 3 bands in all. Zohak, Cirkles (backup) and of course Zygnema. I must salute his strength and stamina. Cue for me to ask “Kaunse chakki ka atta??” LOL. All in all a good gig. Do check out the pics and post your comments! (If you cant see the pics, click on the little red coloured “x” and click “Show Picture”)

 

Zohak

Black

 

Cirkles

 

Zygnema

Cheers and \m/

Sony Ericsson P1i review

Sony Ericsson’s hugely popular P series has been an evolving line of phones on the Symbian platform. With every passing product, Sony have continuously taken it to the next level. First was the P800, then the P900, then came the P910 and P990i, which was regarded by most of tech critics as the most awaited gadget last year.So welcome the latest addition to the P series, the P1i.

Looks and Build Quality

Out of the confines of the boxy shape of the earlier P series (I’ll bet that you could take one, throw it on the forehead of your most hated celebrity and they would be dead on the spot,HEADSHOT!!), we move on to something more svelte.The P1i is a hybrid of the P990i and an M600i, but then, who’s complaining. If you’re asking me, this is THE ideal shape for a PDA. It has a beautiful aluminum/matte black finish. It weighs a light (well, light enough for a PDA anyway) 124g.

On the outside, its got a jog wheel and a return button at the left.On the right we have a shortcut key, the memory stick slot and the camera button. On the front, there’s a tinny VGA camera for video calls, and on the back, a 3.2MP camera.

Input and Output

The touchscreen is the primary interface. The one on this unit is a 2.6-inch transreflective unit with a resolution of 240×320 displaying 262k colours. It’s beautiful to say the very least and is quite readable in bright sunlight as well.

While you can use your fingers for the larger icons, some are a tad too small and will require dual handed operation by means of the stylus. Handwriting recognition is also quite good and I so wish this phone could check my answer papers, it always seems to understand my garish handwriting. Stick to the stylus, thats my advice, you just cant go wrong.

It’s also got a full QWERTY keyboard which is slightly weird if you are new to the format. Its got 2 letters on the same key. To get, for e.g. ‘Q’, rock the key to the left and for ‘W’ rock the key to the right. A bit confusing at first, but simple once you get used to it. You’ll appreciate the fact that it saves some space and makes the phone smaller,keys larger and hence easier to type. Very much unlike the P990i which required you to have fingers as small as those of a little baby to avoid touching the other keys. The feedback is also good.

Performance

The phone features a 208MHz processor with 128MB of RAM alongwith 256MB of ROM and 160MB of internal memory, which give it enough juice to power the applications. One thing I noticed on the phone was that, despite opening loads of applications in the background, the one which was in use showed little or no performance dip. Do this on a Nokia, and it’ll choke and splutter and eventually hang its boots up in no time at all. Goes to show that the phone is an effortless multi-tasker and also the fact that clock frequency ain’t the last word.

The battery is a Li-Ion 1120 mAh unit and is rated for up to 10 hours of talk time and 440hours of stand by time. In the real world, the battery would last a good 2 days if your usage is like one hour of talking, an hour of music playing, a few shots on the camera and some file transfer on the bluetooth. I’d say a third day too, but usage patterns may vary.

Business and Connectivity

The P serie have always been known for their seamless business productivity applications. This one continues the tradition.

Quickoffice, as always, works like a charm. You can create a QuickWord and a QuickSheet file (which are stored in the universal .doc and .xls format). You can also view Powerpoint slides with the option to transfer the output to a projector. You also have a PDF reader, a note making application, a to-do application, a wonderful and effective business card scanner and the option to use BlackBerry Connect. What more could even a CEO need? And they can spare their real assistants with some work or better still, fire them. Who needs a live one who eats, gets sick and shows inconsistency, when you can get the P1i to organize your life for a tenth of the cost.

On the connectivity front, the phone offers GPRS, Wi-Fi 802.11b, 3G, USB 2.0 , Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and IR. And this also happens to be the first SE phone to support iSync to connect with Macs.

I would have liked the phone to have quad-bands, PTT, GPS and 802.11g as well. That would have made the phone the best connected phone on the planet. But sadly, that isnt the case.

Entertainment and Multimedia

The phone is supposed to be a business phone but renders all multimedia applications with impeccable ease. It will play your video’s, music files with that Walkman-ish interface. It also has an FM player with a really neat looking interface.

To the back is also the speaker which delivers a pretty crisp output. If you’re playing high bitrate media, there is little or almost no distortion even at the highest volume. But, the provided earphones suck with a capital ‘S’. Your ears will hurt in no time and their sound quality is abbysymal. I’m disappointed with SE. They should have rather provided the HPM 75 in-earphones. At this price point no one gives a damn to a few hundred rupees.

The phone also features TrackID. What this does is sample a portion of the music, send it back to the main database and gives you complete track info.

Coming to the camera, the 3.2MP unit is one of the best cell phone cameras around. The images produced are clear and crisp. But the camera interface needs to be tweaked a bit, it’s slightly confusing at times. I would have liked a Xenon flash though, the camera deserves it.

Here are some pics (I haven’t fiddled with any of the camera settings in the phone while taking these pictures)

The video capture is nothing to write home about. It takes videos at 320×240 @ 15fps. Unimpressive.

And for killing your time, the phone offers 2 games, Quadra Pop and Vijay Singh golf. While the former is a brick game rip off, the latter is a really sweet looking golf game which shows off the processors true strength.

Hot!

• Slim and Sleek
• Large screen
• Good camera
• Good multimedia support
• FAST!
• Excellent multi-tasking
• Choice of input options (wheel, stylus, keypad, touch screen)
• Bang for the buck

Not!

• No EDGE, PTT or GPS
• Not Quad Band
• Tacky camera interface
• Awkward keyboard takes time getting used to
• Horrid ear phones

What’s in the box? Docking stand, extra stylus, charger, P1-choice.com software voucher, USB cable, manual, SE PC suite CD, HPM-62 handsfree kit and a carrying case.

P1i latest price (as of 14/06/2008)

• India Rs. 17000/-
• USA $440

Conclusion : Mixing business and pleasure isnt exactly an easy job to do, but the P1i manages both with amazing alacrity. It takes both these tasks quite seriously, and I think it’s the best phone in this category because its strengths easily outshine its weaknesses.