The Truant Tales

Yeaaaaaaaaaah. Hooooolidays!!!! Oh, wait. That post has already been written.

Writer's Block. I'd like to blame that, but actually I'm averse to ANY thinking during the holidays. Instead, I shall regale you all with my holiday escapades.

Movies Seen:

One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest (Pretty good. Great ending)
Dog Day Afternoon (A Classic. Al Pacino is brilliant. "Attica, Attica"!!!!)
Monster House (An average Animated film)
Next (Hopeless. Bad. Rubbish. Crap. Its a typical Nic Cage fare)
The Inside Man (Loved it. Spike Lee, Clive Owen, Denzel Washington)
Blades Of Glory (outrageously funny)
Anchorman (Silly. Rarely funny)

Music :

Thin Lizzy - The best of
Aerosmith - Pandora's Box
Bon Jovi - Crossroads
Steppenwolf - The collection
Doobie Brothers - Best of the Doobies 1 and 2

I'd recommend all of the above.

Books :

Children Of Men - P.D James (Good Premise like 1984, but loses track towards the end, unlike 1984)
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (An absolute Classic. A must read)
The Awakening - Kate Chopin (Archaic. Boring. Got it because it was there in the Everman's Library)
Misery - Stephen King (Good book. Glad there are no aliens, demonic possession, rabid dogs in this book, unlike the other King books)
Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth (A classic. Very entertaining)

Currently reading 'Nostromo' - Joseph Conrad. A great Read.

And, I've been spending a lot of time at cracked.com . Hilarious.

The Bat Battle
Retarted Gas Saving Schemes

The most disco of all bands, Boney M, came to Bangalore on the 8th for a quick little concert. It was part of a music festival held by the B-school IIPM (the college with the full page ads that proclaim 'Dare to think beyond IIM'). And the icing on the cake was that the event tickets was absolutely free!!! Contrary to this post, I had a swell time. (If that's the phrase I want to use).

The Fest started at 7:00. with an Indian fusion band 'Aurko' opening. They played well, but after an hour, everyone was getting impatient. The concert was supporting the fight against global warming (the current hot charity item). Which is ironic considering that in their hey time, Boney M had enough polyester on them to match the requirement of Burkina Faso.

After one and three quarters of an hour of waiting, and after 2 DJ's, countless ads, and lots of hamming against global warming, at 8:45 Boney M came out on stage. Before the proceed to describe the concert, let me explain the demographics of the crowd. Around 22,000 people came. Of which I suspect about 60% were in the age group of 35 to 60 (Even one guy with a walker). That was expected. About 20% were IIPM students who got free passes. And the rest 20% were young fans, most of them having heard of the group Boney M for the first time (Me not included).


According to Wikipedia, the Band split up a long time ago, and each one of the four members had the legal right to carry on the Boney M name (Even Bobby Farrell who it turns out did a 'Milli Vanilli' thing all along) . So luckily for us the most talented of the four, Marcia Barrett arrived with her group and her booming voice to enthrall the audience. Even at 60, Marcia Barrett's voice is great. She was accompanied by two back up singers, her husband singing Farrell's parts in the song and an Italian dancer who gyrated his body sending it into intense spasm which some people considered 'dancing'.

Starting off with 'take the heat off me', she proceeded to 'Sunny', 'no woman no cry', 'Daddy cool' (the crowd went absolutely wild), 'Rasputin', 'Belfast', 'Rivers of Babylon' 'Brown Girl in the Ring', 'We Kill the World (Don't Kill the World)' and few more, finally ending with a medley of their top hits. For the encore, She came back and belted a few of her solo hits.

The crowd was great. The stood on their chair, danced to each and every song. They were also singing along every song. 'Rivers of Babylon' became a 15 minute song with the crowd singing the chorus for the last 10 minutes. I had lost my voice by the third song of the concert.

In the end of the concert, there was a 'mosh pit' (All metal fans will know), we were throwing our friends up in the air and in general having a 'whale of a time' (If that's the phrase I want to use).

I was there, and it still hasn't set in. Aerosmith, their first time in India and the crowds loved it.

4:00 : I arrive in Palace Grounds. Even though, I arrive 3 and a half hours before the concert was supposed to start, I'm stuck in a very long queue. First indications that this concert was going to be something great.

4:30 : The frisking begins. They allow us to enter into another waiting area. They cross check the ticket, and 8 security guards frisk you again and again, for cigarettes, bottles etc. The frisking process was pretty funny because there was a bunch of cocky people screaming "Don't touch my balls", or "I'm gay for you too", "oh la la", and one guy even started frisking the bodyguard.

5:30 : The gates open into the crowd. I run like never before to get a great place. I didn't get first row, or the second, or the third...infact I got 9 to 10th row from the stage and about 4th row from the ramp that had been built in the middle of the stage. The stage set-up was amazing. There was two huge screens on either side that'd show the band playing. And behind the stage was a huge LCD screen, that'd show a composite image of videos, the band playing and specially made cartoons and effects.

It was getting really hot and stuffy. It was so crowded that when I raise my hand, I couldn't put them down again as there was no space. Even though cigarettes were confiscated, some people did manage to smuggle them in. And all of them after smoking, would blow it up in the air. Unfortunately, the wind would blow the smoke right into my face. I was getting dizzier by the minute, with all the second hand smoke I was breathing in.

7:30 : Scheduled time of the concert. Before that, there's some stupid contest where the crowd had to judge who did the best air-guitaring. How do they expect us to judge the contest? We've been waiting since 4:00, with no water, no food standing in the blisteringly hot sun. The moment the 5 contestants came out, the crowd started booing. Even Rohit Barker, the host of the contest was taken aback with the crowds hostile reaction. The five idiots did their air-guitaring amidst loud boos and "Go back home, f**kers". That was fun, I enjoyed booing and heckling the five idiots.

8:00 : There's some delay. Aerosmith hasn't yet come on. The crowd's impatient. Its really hot, haven't had a drop of water since 3:30. But one thing's clear. Bangalore is the Rock capital of India and probably Asia. All during the wait, the organizers were playing music in the huge speakers, and the entire crowd (me included) were singing the songs, word to word.

8:15 : The Hard rock Legends enter the stage. A huge scream. Everyone was going ballistic and the band definitely sensed this energy. they started off with 'Taste of India'. A pefect song to get the crowd going. The crowd was singing along with the band. It got so loud that Steve Tyler, stopped and let the crowd do the singing.

It's hard to tell that Steve Tyler and the band were 50 year old silvers. They had such energy and jumped all over the place. They carried on with 'Love in the elevator', 'cryin' (The screen behind showed the Alicia Silverstone video), 'Fallin in love is so hard on the knees' (the crowd was going crazy), 'Jaded', 'Eat the rich' (with steve Tyler showing off his Lick me sign on his stomach). They band then returned to their blues roots. Steve and Joe Perry, pulled up two chairs in the front of the ramp and started a blues song. This had to be the moment of the concert for me. Both of them were abt 5 feet from where I was standing.

A few more blues songs and then they started playing the hits again. They started off with 'Livin on the edge' (the LCD screen showing the video) and then Brad Withford stepped upto the ramp and started playing 'Sweet Emotion'. While Steve took a break, Joe Perry expressed his love for India - 'I thank India for all what they've given the world. I'm not talking about Vindaloo, or Elephant rides or the thing they put on the hands (Mehendi). I'm talking about something the band appeciates the most - Kamasutra. Its all about fooling around'. He then proceeded to play 'fooling around' with an Angus Young like struff around the stage. Steve Tyler introduced the band - Joe Kramer, Tom Hamilton, Brad Wittford, Joe 'f**king' Perry who introduced the 'demon o' screamin' Steve Tyler.

The band took a short break. During this time, the LCD screen played a cartoon showing the band and Lucifer himself coming to Bangalore. Even though, we were tired from the singing and the jumping, we screamed like we've never screamed before. The band came back and played 'Walk this way'. The crowd knew all the words and were singing along. The band then said goodbye and went back in.

The crowd then started chanting, 'we want more' , 'Aerosmith'. It got so loud, that Steve Tyler came out. 'Comeon, Banaglore, you gotta call Joe Perry and the band out too.'. The crowd then got boistrous, screaming loudly 'Joe F**cking Perry'. The band came out and played 'I don't wanna miss a thing'.

10:15 : The concert was officially over. What a concert. Absolutely mindblowing.

I enjoyed the concert to the hilt. I don't know why I reminded people of their friendly neighbourhood crack-dealor, but atleast 10 people asked me during vaious moments during the concert "Man, do you have any weed on you?". Maybe, it was the trance like jumping, the vigorous waving of the hand, the shaking of the head (and a lot of hair that I grew for the concert) like I was having a seizure, or the fact that I wasn't just singing the songs but I was screaming them.