Well, the new band is up and running at college. We got spiffy new equipment, shiny guitars, drums, amps and the full jazz band. Believe me; some things in the world are just so awesome that one needs to be there to feel it. The Fret board and crispness of new strings on a brand new Ibanez guitar is something I can compare only with the smell of the first rain on the parched earth. It’s amazing.
We finished our exams at 4 PM. We have a little over 24 hours for the show and we’re barley even managing a few hours of sleep. My mind says ‘Hell Yeah’ to jamming but my body is a positive ‘Hell no!’. Yet, we get together to jam. Songs are chosen carefully. I need to state that we find a western rock band in fairly hostile territory with regard to appreciation of Rock and Roll. A place where a majority prefer more ‘homely forms’ of music, the task of this band was to win the hearts of the masses, to give them a show like no other, and to do this, what songs we chose was going to be important. Jam sessions begin at 4:30 PM on the 2nd and go right up to 3:30 AM on the 3rd of September. Classes next morning. I returned to my room and sincerely got down on my knees and prayed that all goes well that evening. I don’t believe I’ve prayed harder…oh wait…I have!
Dance-vance over, show-time! Yours truly is on rhythm guitar. Thanks to a brief shower, the equipment was dismantled and time was being wasted in putting stuff back together. The crowd grows impatient. Many had heard that there was this so called rock band and came with a certain ‘let’s see what the f they can do?’ There also came the faithful supporters who were more than happy that we were going to be playing some actual rock and not Bryan Adams(All respect to the man….was the first show I went to and do like his music….but it ain’t rock! It’s Ballads!) Usual chants of ‘Start the fucking show’ run through. I stand there slowly watching. I don’t feel tense, but I do feel anxious. ‘What if they don’t like our music?’ runs through my head. I shake it off and concentrate on remembering my chords right. Technician stops running around….we’re all set to go!
As my drummer begins hitting the high-hat, my pulse slowly races as I pull the first chord. This was it. This was make or break. Acceptance into the college or mockery of everything I hold dear. First song up is ‘Born to be wild’ by Steppenwolf….tune runs on the rhythm guitar, bass and lead join in. Still a general amount of screaming and excitement of anticipation runs through the crowd. But then my vocalist loses it and goes nuts…..crowd goes wild…vocalist singing his diaphragm out screaming ‘born to be wild’. And then it hit me, holy cow! It’s exactly a year since I was last on stage…I had forgotten how good it felt. Like a breeze, it swept up on me and that was it. I was HOME! Home sweet home! The comfort and the person I was on stage! It was me again!
The crowd was going nuts, vocalist wielding his power, bass and lead fitting in perfectly with the newly-promoted drummer. I’m loving this. This was what rock and roll was all about. It was never about the chicks….not for me at least. It was the music. It was the stage. It was the lights. It was the people screaming along with you on every note. It was LIFE!
The songs that followed that evening were ‘Socha Hain’ (Rock ON!!), ‘Rocking in the free world’ (Neil Young) and ‘Smoke on the Water’ (Deep Purple). As I took charge of the lat song with the famous riff of Glover, the crowd goes wild. Nearly insane. Many of my peers who never listen to western rock, thanks to the jam session were singing along with the tune. I knew then, we were loved. We were part of them and we were their Rock band. You know you’ve had a good show when someone who was uninitiated top your music is screaming his/her lungs out. No matter what my friend says, I do not love music because I have nothing better to love. I tell her - I love music because there is never enough of it to love. And as a person up on stage with a hundred odd of your peers, 80% of which who hardly listen to English music, to have them jump up and down to your beat, there is no better sign that the show was good.
I had one of the students come up to me after the show and tell me that he has never attended a rock show in his life and felt we were mind blowing and did not imagine that this was what a rock show was about. And this was a mere 25 minutes of performance. I even managed to disperse the myth that one needs to get high to rock on stage. This guitarist was as sober as a priest. 1 year later, I still have it in me. Music is not dead and MBA did not manage to kill it. Rock will never die. And the day, I have no more music to play; I’m taking the stairway to heaven or the highway to hell….. Until then, this boy is back and is rocking in the free world! Quoting Metallica –
but here I am, on the road again
here I am, up on the stage
here I go, playing the star again
there I go, turn the page
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