Evergreen

The Evergreen show took place on 30th August at Calicut at the Beach Hotel courtyard.The event was, as always, organized by making Waves. The show was sponsored by Airtel and this show has a unique distinction of being covered by them and beamed onto the Airtel site. All those of you Airtel subscribers with GPRS enabled cell phones can see the show in all its glory by going to Airtel Live. The other sponsors were Herbz India and Electra Inhouse.

The event was not publicized. It was held as an invitation only show and there must have been a hundred people at best. On to the show. Scheduled to start at 7pm, the show could only start at 8:10 pm, mainly due to the fact that there weren't enough people in front to get a decent rock concert going. I dunno y, the invitation says 7pm and yet even at 8 there were hardly 25 people there.

There was a small reason though. It was dry day and having reached there, many people went out again in search of some dutch courage, once they realized it wasn't available at the venue.ue. The band started off at 8.10 pm with a soaring song by Deep Purple. They then went on to sing Breaking Away by Floyd. Joe's vocals were superb and showed no signs of having sang the previous night at IIM-K.

They then went on to belt out Into the Shining Sun by Floyd from Division Bell. Then they played a few faithful oldies at a stretch, Money for nothing by Dire Straits, Brick in the Wall, by Floyd, Walk of Life and Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits, Smoke on the water by Deep Purple, Sweet Child Of Mine by GNR etc. The band then did Fear of the Dark by Maiden, 6 'o' Clock by Dream Theatre, Wasted Sunsets by Deep Purple, Pull u Under by Dream Theatre, Vengeance, their own original.

They have a great song there in Vengeance, a hard hitting rocker.I must mention that the drummer was in fine fettle thru out the show. Then there was Soldier of Fortune by Deep Purple. Joe walked into the audience with that one and got a member to render almost half of the song alone. The singer was Paul Verghese, who did a very commendable job. 

They then did a medley of Metallica, starting with Master of Puppets, going into Wherever I may Roam, Enter Sandman etc. The Guitarist and Joe really showed their liking for the heavier numbers. Dream Theatre must b their favourite band, I guess, it really showed when they played! There was a nice gesture on the part of the band.

They covered Ground Zero by 13AD. I think it won't be out of place to mention here that this is a great idea. All band should do atleast one cover of another Indian Band's original. Anyway, Bon Jovi is not going to sing their songs, so atleast, let us show our camaraderie and unity and at the same time promote Original Indian Rock.

And the most surprising fact here was that the guitarist didn't know the lead and guess who took over?!! The sound engineer Gopi, who veilded the axe to near perfection in that song. Let me put in 2 words about the sound engineer here.

Gopi was a lead-guitarist with the erstwhile Cochin Band, Wrenz. Once they split, he won a coveted admission to the Pune Film Institute and did a degree in Audio Engineering, and that too, on scholarship! An excellent sound engineer, he has mixed with Roger Drego himself. Being a good guitarist helps, I guess.

He runs his own set up in Cochin, the Sounds were entirely his. Good sounds too. Some of the amps and speakers were built by this guy. He has been doing sounds now for Motherjane also, apart from Evergreen. As the last and final song the band played Hotel California. Sad, there were a couple of heads in the front who kept screaming for this song and a couple of other songs like that, done to death by countless other bands.

When will we grow up, I wonder?!! Amidst all this mindless screaming, the band did only one original. When will v let our bands perform their originals in peace. Chennai, B'lore, Delhi n Mumbai now have bands who play only originals. Hope someday.

A real power packed performance, special mention has 2 be made of the vocal prowess of Joe and the drummer.  The band wound up at 10:45pm, after 2 ½ hrs of non-stop rocking. Great band, good show. If they stick on together, they have a great future.