Gig review Ruia High Voltage

Mumbai University sucks all right. Call me a whining dog, if you will, but how could you possibly justify 35 days of exams which leaves me with almost 4-6 days for every exam. And in any case I study only 2 days before the exam. (Hey, I’m just being faithful to my tribe.) I was going nuts with all the tension flying around. Thankfully, Ruia’s annual fest couldn’t have been at a better time. And with top notch bands headlining, I just couldn’t give it a miss. Just what the doctor ordered.

Necrosis were first, and I was told they are famous for their Slayer covers. Heck, even their bass player looked like a Tom Araya-me-too. But what you see is not what you always get. Don’t get me wrong, their musicians were spot on, only the vocalist disappointed. I mean, someone go tell that chimp, Tom Araya shouts, doesn’t screech, for heavens sake. It sounded more like Lamb of God or worse Cradle of Filth. The drummer too, I must add, wasn’t quite in the groove. The covers were good, but the OC’s were not.

In the end they covered Raining Blood, and there was a bottle of cranberry juice (me thinks) which the vocalist poured all over himself. The girls went crazy at that but I found it quite amusing. I’m pretty sure; the lice in his head must have had a “dry day”.

Up next were Demonic Resurrection. They’ve been keeping a low profile since March, when they couldn’t find a good enough drummer. They are back now, with Viru of PDV. And after their first track, I had to conclude, they sound good only on the CD, and what they did live didn’t even make my head move even one bit. Every passing song just reaffirmed my conclusions. I just couldn’t understand why the hell people were mosh-ing and head banging their asses off.

Every song sounded like a collection of riffs, and there was no flow whatsoever. Vocals weren’t very much on the pitch and the lead parts bored me to death. Like a Wiseman once said “When you follow a chord family, you get a nice song. If you don’t, you get a Demonic song.” Now I fully get what that means…One more thing I would like to mention were their rather funny song titles “Spirits of the Mystic Mountains”. Right, we have only hillocks in Bombay and a Plateau at best in Matheran. DR really curdled my brains, or “dimaag ki dahi” to be Bombay-cally correct.

The only saving grace was Viru’s drumming, which was spot on and thunderous to boot.

Sceptre were up next and you could feel the anxiety go up by a mile. Did they deliver, this time around? Hell, yes! Read on to know more.

The first track they played was an inch perfect cover of Slayer’s Stain of Mind. And to my surprise (that’s a bit of an understatement actually), Teemeer (vocals and lead guitar) dedicated that song to me!! Guruji, you’re the fuckin best! Only problem was, the chicks(or everyone else, for that matter) didn’t know, “I” was Satish. Should have rather said “SatishSays dot Com”. Would have got me some traffic. Er. he he.

Corny jokes apart, Sceptre showed the kids, how exactly Slayer is covered. Blood curdling screams, perfect drumming and sync in the band, the jaws had to drop.

I screamed my lungs out and lost my voice in the very first track itself! They proceeded to play some of their originals and some Metallica covers (One, Fuel and NEM). You should have seen the girls screaming during Nothing Else Matters, everybody sang! If anyone’s questioning their logic of doing Metallica, you should have seen the crowd reaction. It was a college gig after all. They topped of their set with their hugely popular anti-smoking metal anthem, Charred. There was a 4-way wall of death, and I just wish I could have jumped in! But then I’ve got exams to give, and swollen body parts are not a very pleasant thing. Everybody enjoyed their set, and if not for Sceptre, I am sure half the people would queued up for a refund.

Vayu were the last band to play for the evening. I was seeing them after a real long time, and 2Blue’s voice was re-assuring to say the very least. Ravi Iyer too was all-guns-blazing with his guitar and wowed the crowd with his skills. I loved their Pink Floyd covers and all was well, when the mike suddenly started going off every few seconds.

2Blue had enough of it, smashed the mike and the band evacuated the stage. Shame, they couldn’t play their complete set. Some classic therapy is always good after metal.

That was the end of the gig and a really worthwhile day. I must congratulate Ruia’s organizing committee, for I heard, it was your first attempt at a rock gig. Not bad at all. Do try to focus on giving better sound, next time around. Get a proper sound engineer or something. The vocals and the guitars did get a bit drowned out by the drums at times. Do this much and I’ll put you guys on my “Gigs-to-attend-list”. Kudos.

As for me, I’ll return to my “beloved” books. Do post your comments on the gig and this review. Adios.

SatishSays dot Com rating 7/10

Diwali.. the festival of lights… says who?

All along while we were growing up, we were taught that Diwali is a festival to celebrate the homecoming of Lord Ram after 14 years of his exile in the forests. It is celebrated by lighting rows of lamps(hence deepa-wali… get it??) to welcome him. Nice excuse to clean up your homes and hog all that delicious eatery being made actually.

But I feel that over the years, Diwali has lost that meaning of being a festival of lights. The whole country looks very much lighted up allright, but the emphasis is more on the sound part of it. Everybody wants to make as much noise as possible.. and in the process you end up polluting the air and create one helluva racket.

What many dont understand is that this sound troubles animals, new born babies, the oldies and everyone in between who isnt so hell bent on bursting crackers. Pray, what fun does one derive from blowing up their own hard earned money in plumes of smoke? That lousy smell of gun-powder fills up the air as though it was some battle field. It is very nauseating and can irritate the best of people with huge amounts of patience.

I just dont understand why we Indians have to be so noisy to celebrate any festival, not just Diwali. Is there just no way we can celebrate our rituals without making noise? Why has it become so necessary to set up huge loudspeakers in every lane and blast off stupid and senseless Bollywood songs, or in this case burst crackers way past the 10 pm deadline?

You might allege that I am being supremely cynical and not looking at the brighter side of things. Sorry, I cant see anything bright about waves and waves of 120+decibel noise. And there’s no running away from it.

I hope the smarter ones reading this blog post educate the people around them and drive some sense in the brains of the young and gullible to tell them that what they are doing is thoroughly wrong. We deserve to live in a quiet and non-polluted surrounding.

Happy Diwali and Eid to all reading this. Enjoy your holidays. Metal prevails.

P.S. One bright side actually, Iron Maiden are coming to India. MMRDA grounds, BKC Feb 1. Whoopeee!! And they’ll be playing songs from Powerslave and Somewhere in Time. Metalheads, see you there.

Dr. Watson, you need some rest..

Dr. Watson who?

James Watson, is someone who jointly won a nobel prize in medicine in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA, and now he heads the newly-formed Allen Institute for Brain Science. ( You can see his Wikipedia page for more ).

Dr. Watson what?

So you ask, why am I reviving his memories now? Because this guy doesnt quite rest on his laurels, and I dont quite mean it in a very positive way. His other favourite passtime apart from ripping DNA is passing racial slurs. Huh? Whats that now, you ask. Why will someone who’s so brainy pass such remarks?

I just got up today morning, to read in the Times Of India about this old hat speaking nonsense about how the colour of skin determines intelligence and a lot of other factors.

He says that he is”inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa’’ because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really’’.

So Mr. Watson, you think the amount of melanin once skin generates decides the intelligence of a person? Intelligence and beauty are certainly not things that are concentrated in certain pockets of the world, but spatially distributed by Nature, all across the globe. If some part of the world has a rich pool of intelligentia, it does so only because it has the infrastructure and moolah.This in turn attracts talent from all over the world.

But its just you, Dr. Watson, who says that “Blacks are stupid?” This directly means that you are accusing people like Martin Luther, Oprah Winfrey and so many other countless people of being stupid. Pray, were/are they? I am ashamed that we let such frivolous factors affect our logical decisions and there can exist such narrow mindedness at the highest levels of professionalism. I thought all this “racial” crap was buried a long time ago. God bless, people like you, who have nothing better to do, to bring it up. Like I said, Dr. Watson, you definitely need some rest.