Motherjane and Asthra at Backwaters 2007
Harris
 
The annual cultural festival at the IIM-K this year boasted of big names, Motherjane and Euphoria. The former on the 13th and the latter on the 14th of January. The venue was the sprawling and beautiful campus of IIM-K at Kunnamangalam, Calicut.
The info first came to us thru Rahul Gandhi, the manager of Motherjane and alumni of the institute. He also wanted a closing band for Motherjane as the band had to leave by 9pm. We linked Asthra on to them. But later on, they changed their program and Asthra opened for them.
It was a reunion of sorts for us, Althaf, Naush, Zubin n me, having gone almost all over Kerala 2gether for various shows during our younger days and that too on our bikes, joined together 2 watch this show. This time around, v had our car, the spirits flowed freely and we were at the IIM-K on time, ie, on the scheduled time of 7pm. But when v reached there it was just the sound check for Asthra. The stage was excellent, the sound sounded great. Motherjane did a sound check next. We were surprised to see the sound checks taking place so late. But we were informed that Motherjane had already done their sound check b4 but were not happy with the sound of the snare drum. Mind u, the snare drum did sound very tacky.
On to the show….. The show started at around 7.45pm. There were hardly 250 people there.
Asthra sounded excellent. Makingwaves had done a show with them before. But this time around, only Reebu and Daya remained of the old line-up. Biju Peter was on vox, Biju was on lead n rhythm and Sikkanth was also on lead and rhythm.
The band did a host of covers. The stand-out among them being 29 Palms by Robert Plant. This is not a song one normally hears on the concert circuit, but it was rendered magnificently, the vocals, the guitar tones, everything gelling together beautifully. They also did Heavy Fuel, Smoke on the Water, Black Night etc. The band sounded tight, the vocals were good, the guitars and drumming work excellent. If I must find fault, the vox and the lead needs to brush up on their stage show a bit. I am told that the lead was once the guitarist for Shiva!
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Motherjane
The red hot Motherjane got on stage next, almost all of them dressed in black. The band played their entire range of songs from Insane Biography and few from their new album and just one cover, Hallowed be thy name in their entire set list. The band was tight and really packed a punch. John and Baiju were outstanding. Baiju's guitar work was outstanding, easily one of the best guitarists in the country now! The mixing left a lot to be desired. Suraj wasn't loud enough. When v later met him, he said he sounded ok on the monitors. One thing I really thought they lacked was some good backing vocals. Baiju was seen doing duty on rare occasions, but his virtuoso guitaring means that the band really needs someone else to do the backing vocal duties. They do have 2 other guitarists who could very well fill in.
I know this is an issue that has been discussed threadbare everywhere and there are pros n cons in it, but I honestly and sincerely felt that the band needs to play a few more covers. Just one cover in a 1 ½ hr show is a bit tough. And, like Suraj jokingly told the sparse crowd, Insane Biography has really sold so few pieces that it's been classified as a collector's item! So, the sad thing was, not many people knew the band's songs, so, sadly, not much of singing along!
There was a comment by a friend of ours, who had not heard the album; that all songs sounded the same, but were called different names! So, that is the scene with people who haven't heard the album before. Ofcourse, there is always some amount of mindless bobbing of heads regardless of what is playing. With the IIM, NIT and another engineering college in the close vicinity it was sad to see only around 200 odd ppl there for the show.
The sound and lights were excellent, but the mixing did let them down. The organizers called us up on the previous day asking for contact numbers and emails of people on our list so that they cud let them know of the show. But by that time, v had already let our people know. Despite the mixing and the lack of covers, Motherjane did put up an excellent show. Once again, I must mention that Baiju and John really rocked!
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For more pictures from the Motherjane show, check out http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/harrispm/Motherjane
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