Classic Repeat

Rewind to about twenty five years or more, as Indian Ocean bassist Rahul Ram puts it “perhaps even before you were born.” For this generation of the indie scene perhaps you actually weren’t born around that time or were too young to be seen at a rock concert. We are talking about the late Seventies until the early Eighties when surprisingly the Indian rock scene had already found its pulse. In January last year, Re-Rock, saw bands – like White Fang and Applied For – from the early Eighties reunite. What was to be a rather intimate, unpublicised gig, invited an audience of nearly five hundred, and was shifted from its intended venue (a small resto-bar in Delhi) to the amphitheatre at the Garden of Five Senses. “Thing is people my age who are today these boring old corporate honchos landed up with their wives and kids to show them that they were also once cool. It’s just nice to know that guys were doing this so many years ago and some of that music is brilliant even now,” says Ram who started off as a bassist with White Fang.

To say the response to the second edition of Re-Rock held at the same venue last month was overwhelming would be an understatement. Perhaps it had something to do with the generations that add up at such rare occasions. Ram’s description of last year’s concert measured this year’s atmosphere as well, “Everybody brought their hip flasks, the air was redolent of dope and it was like back to college days minus the drunken brawls. Just as a nostalgia trip ought to be: You remember the good and sweep the bad under the carpet.” The only difference being this year the turnout was a considerable multiple of last year’s.

The night blazed the memory trail for Delhi’s rock scene with the bands playing classic covers like ”˜Born to be Wild’ (Steppenwolf), ”˜Down to the Waterline’ and ”˜Sultans of Swing’ (Dire Straits), Cocaine (JJ Cale), ”˜Hush’ and ”˜Highway Star’ (Deep Purple) with a few reminders of today with Chickenfoot’s ”˜Oh Yeah’ and Kings of Leon’s ”˜Sex is On Fire.’ Numbered originals rolled with White Fang’s ”˜Buddha Sadhu,’ a Ram composition which “celebrates so many years of drinking Old Monk,” and the recently re-formed Unfinished Biz who performed a bunch of originals ”“ ”˜Nomad’s Land,’ ”˜Last Rock & Roll’ and ”˜Nothing Ever Changed.’ “Too old to rock & roll, too young to die,” Electric Plant frontman Varun Sharma splendidly pitched the night’s spirit in Ian Anderson’s words on stage before rolling into a Dire Straits cover. Electric Plant was one of the two (with Unfinished Biz) new attractions at this year’s Re-Rock. “For me personally Electric Plant is where music began, they did a show in 1979 at the Ashoka Hotel, and I was one of the privileged few to attend that packed concert. Tickets were actually being sold in black. I have to say it blew my brains out. I still remember that set list by heart,” says Applied For vocalist Tony George, of Electric Plant which seems to have been legend to aspiring rock bands at the time.

Drummer Abhinav Dhar’s band Collegian was another band that was considered at par with Electric Plant, but Dhar doesn’t return with his old lineup but starts afresh with old pals in Unfinished Biz. Unfinished Biz shares few members with Applied For (vocalist Tony George and bassist Bann Roy) and White Fang (guitarist Amitanshu Das). The band has been working via Skype given the geographical barriers (with members scattered across London, the US and India) though they met in New York last year in what guitarist Das describes as “a real rock & roll weekend” during which they even stayed at the legendary Chelsea Hotel.

At the rehearsals for the concert, the guys roll with recollections of days when “a guitarist’s equipment included screwdrivers and soldering irons,” “getting one’s equipment, putting it together and setting the stage was like an army logistics movement,” and playing at an all-girl’s college, Delhi’s LSR, was “the greatest moment in an Indian rock musician’s life.” And as Das splendidly puts it, in some way speaking for all these old time rockers, “I guess I’m just trying to age ungracefully.”