Buddha Blown    

Buddha blown was formed way back in the 90' with Sanjeev Thomas on guitars and vocals and sometimes drums, Ashok Cherian on drums vocals and guitars, Wayne on bass, Vedant on guitars. the original name was Buddhas Babies. Their song My Desire, was featured on the Great Indian Rock CD, a selection of the 12 best original Indian rock songs.

The band had split and the new line up was christened Buddha Blown. This line up is essentially Sanjeev and Ashok. Their original song Dead Man, was featured on the next years edition of Great Indian Rock CD. Sanjeev has done two movies to date. One in English called 'Girl' which is yet to be released and one in Hindi called Bheema. 'Buddha Blown' composed and recorded the music for the first ever Rock Opera produced in India called "The Fallen" written & directed by 'Michael Muthu'. This was performed in Chennai on the 13th & 14th of March and plans are on to tour the country.

Meanwhile their first studio album should be out by August when they plan to tour. They now take guest artistes for shows and we were lucky 2 see in action 2 great stalwarts, Keith Peters and Donan Murray.  At last, Buddha Blown came to Calicut. The show took place on May 3rd. Organized by making waves as a part of their 10th anniversary celebrations. Actually we go way back to the 90s but since the name was coined in ‘94 it was decided to do it this year.

The venue was the Rotary swimming pool lawns. A small place. With the raised poolside being the stage. The band traveled with some sounds from Prithvi, Chennai. The band had a show in Thekkady. They were supposed to have one in Cochin but were allegedly ditched by the organizers there. Sadly, it drizzled from the morning and throughout the day. So we had to set up an ugly contraption to cover the playing area.

Our ideas of an open stage with water in the background were literally washed away. We managed to invite around 250 people but only about a hundred people turned up, mostly due to the rain. Their loss. This was a very tight band of musicians who could switch from one song to the other with ease.

Sadly, I expected them to sing a lot of their originals, even asked them to before the show, but somehow they managed to sing only one or two at the most. Sanjeev’s guitar processor burnt out right in the beginning, so he was off mood till rather late into the show, which may well explain the reason for lesser OC’s.

His excellency, the uncrowned lord of bass guitarists in India, Keith Peters himself was on bass. When Ashok told me a week or so ago that they have two big names with them, Keith and Donan Murray, I had heard of the former only and was wondering who the latter was. He made sure on stage that I would never ever forget him.

Excellent guitar player, a mean vocalist, all a guy in front had to do was ask for a song, any song, and he would immediately go into it. One of the reasons for the plethora of covers! No blame on him, blame squarely on the people in the front! Keith was superb on bass. When sanjeev’s processor burnt out, he kept us entertained with some excellent slap bass technique.

The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the band, neither that of the crowd… if you can call a hundred people that!!At one stage the tarp on top bulged down due to the load of water on top and it started pouring on stage. Then Ashok announced their OC, 'Water' and started singing that. Talk about timing!

The band had a unique jammy feel to them. Ashok made sure on the drums that he did not play the covers ditto the originals, showing his dislike for covers oh-so-subtly. They got a couple of band guys from Calicut to sing with them and got an old guitarist to jam with them onstage, endearing themselves further to the folks. It was nice to see Sanjeev go to the drums and Ashok pick up the guitar and sing a few blues based songs.

The band started off at 7:30 and stopped only at 10:30. Three hours of non-stop playing! I had to hijack the stage at one time just to thank the sponsors! And I could manage this only at about 10pm! We got them a few lights and a genset. The smoke machine simply didn’t work, there was an audible hum on the speakers when the lights came on, but then, there will always be hiccups. Despite the (lack of!) crowd and the drizzle and the short notice, we did break even. For that we have to thank a host of sponsors and other friends who helped us make it possible.

This was the song-list, but not in this order...

'Cocaine' 'Its My Life' 'Sweet Child O' Mine' 'Buffalo Soldier' 'Enter Sandman' 'Sultans Of Swing' 'Another Brick In The Wall' 'Summer Of '69' 'Living Next Door To Alice' 'Water' (OC) 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' 'Whisky Drinking Woman' 'Crazy Li'l Thing Called Love' 'Smoke On The Water' 'With A Little Help From My Friends'

Budha Blown setting up 2004