Gig Preview: Celestial Teapot Mark 10th Anniversary with Prog Friends Midhaven, Lotus and Labyrinth This Week

When you spend a decade together as a band, there are likely to be a few running jokes and cringe situations for fuel. With Pune-based instrumental rock act Celestial Teapot, bassist Tushar Verma talks about a fictional character named “Udit” – apparently a “mummified mix of singer Udit Narayan and actor Uday Chopra.” He adds, “There was also an FM radio interview where we were asked to ‘sing’ one of our songs and we ended up singing a song from the school assembly.”

Through the course of releasing their debut album One Big Sky (2016), the song “Lumens” in 2017 and their EP Perception in 2020, the band has seen a few lineup changes and resultant changes to the sonic palette of Celestial Teapot. “The music has become increasingly layered and a bit more complex on the musical side, while a bit more purposeful with every release,” Verma adds.

The band is bringing their original lineup on stage to celebrate 10 years this week in Mumbai (March 23rd) and Pune (March 25th), with a total of six musicians on stage and rewriting parts to fit the upcoming iteration. “It’s quite nerve-racking and exciting,” the bassist says. Celestial Teapot will perform all their material on stage and possibly a new song at these two shows, co-organized by online community WherePostRockDwells.

They’re joined in Mumbai by metallers Midhaven and Vadodara instrumental act Labyrinth, while the Pune show features support from alt/prog-rock band Lotus. The gig marks the return to live performances for Midhaven, who released their album Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt in 2021. Bandleader Karan Kaul says along with guitarist-vocalist Aditya Mohanan, they’ll have drummer Moin Farooqui to fill in for Aviraj Kumar (who has moved out of India to Malaysia) and bassist David DeMenezes.

Midhaven will be arranging some of the songs off the new album slightly differently for the live show. Kaul adds, “We’re playing the album in all its glory, trying to bring justice to the love we put into this record. This is quite literally the litmus test, the ice breaker, the pub stomper.”

Labyrinth are also staging a comeback of sorts after a brief hiatus, although they recently performed in Mumbai in February as well. Guitarist Ketan Rathod says welcoming back drummer Siddharth Shastri (who moved back from Canada to India) was a big catalyst in the instrumental act returning to being active again this year. He adds, “Now that everyone is living in the same city [Vadodara] we have been writing new music since a couple of months now.” In addition to bringing songs like “Shouganai,” “VantaBlack” and “Pocket Galaxy,” Labyrinth also have a lighting engineer at the boards for their Mumbai gig.

In Pune on March 25th, Lotus return to perform for a home crowd after long, playing their 2022 album Dear Diary in its entirety and a new song or two. Bassist Bob Alex says it had been a while since they last took to the stage – performing in Guwahati in September last year. He adds, “We’ve been trying to work out a show in Pune for a while now and when the boys at Celestial Teapot reached out to us regarding their 10 year anniversary, we took it as a sign! Pune is our home city and we’re extremely excited to be able to perform for the amazing folks here.”

Celestial Teapot perform with Midhaven and Labyrinth on March 23rd at AntiSOCIAL, Mumbai. Get tickets here.

Celestial Teapot perform with Lotus on March 25th at AntiSOCIAL, Pune. Get tickets here.