Thermal And A Quarter Bring Back ‘Humpty Dumpty’ in Unplugged Live Video

Bengaluru rock band Thermal And A Quarter’s “Humpty Dumpty” is from their debut self-titled album, released in 2000 and vocalist-guitarist and songwriter Bruce Lee Mani says it was written as early as 1997. With lines that allude to greedy politicians and their nexus with “saffron saints,” there’s plenty that’s applicable in the socio-political landscape even today from the 27-year-old tune.

With a new unplugged live performance video of “Humpty Dumpty” out now, Mani tells Rolling Stone India that it felt “relevant to dust it off and play it again” in their regular sets and then it was retooled for their Un/Plugged show series. Performing 10 songs acoustic and another 10 songs fully electric, “Humpty Dumpty” got the unplugged treatment at Fandom At Gilly’s Redefined, complete with Mani playing mandolin and joined by guitarist Tony Das, drummer Rajeev Rajagopal and bassist Leslie Charles.

A lot more pointed in their lyrics back in the early Nineties, Mani says they’ve often seen people grinning as they hear the lyrics to the song. He jokes about how they were “much younger and more foolish” to not get into the kind of wordplay that’s part of their lyrics in the subsequent years, but it makes “Humpty Dumpty” all the more powerful.

Thermal And A Quarter will take this song and their Un/Plugged show to The Piano Man, Eldeco Centre in New Delhi on May 18th, playing a 140-minute set of acoustic and electric songs from across their decades-old catalog. Mani says Rajagopal and Charie have spent more time “planning grooves a little differently” for their acoustic sets. Das adds that among the guitar parts, it wasn’t too much effort to “unify” the parts that were perhaps more dexterous in an electric setting.

Das adds with a laugh, “I feel it’s an effort for Bruce [to play] because he’s a big guy, and he’s playing this tiny little [mandolin], and I watch him have to suffer.” Mani adds, “I’m still struggling.”

The band says New Delhi has always been “really welcoming” for Thermal And A Quarter, who are playing after about a year in the capital. At The Piano Man, the Un/Plugged set will include songs across albums for the acoustic set, while the electric set focuses on their 2020 album A World Gone Mad and its predecessor, The Scene from 2015 as well as newer singles “Inside Out.”

TAAQ are likely to take the Un/Plugged set to Mumbai soon, and possibly perform a regular set in Pune. Mani adds, “We are working on album number nine. We’ve done with pretty much all the songs. We’re trying to write a few more and we should get into tracking that pretty soon.”

Watch the video for “Humpty Dumpty” Unplugged below. Thermal And A Quarter play their Un/Plugged set at The Piano Man, New Delhi (Eldeco Centre) on May 18th, 9 pm onwards. Get tickets here.