The Truant Tales

What better band to follow the Boney M concert last week than Megadeth and Machine head. They performed as part of the 'Rock In India' festival (It should have been called 'headache inducing metal fest'. I wouldn't have normally gone to a fest with only heavy metal bands performing, but one of dad's friends offered us free passes. And the word 'free' can make any student drool.

The festival started at 2:00 and until 7:15 the Indian metal bands performed. That included Casino blues, Junkyard groove, Thermal and a quarter, Motherjane, Millennium, Pentagram, etc etc.

At 7:30, Machine Head came on stage. They played till 8:15. Not being a fan ,all the songs sounded the same - like an Ogre with hemorrhoids sitting on hot coal. In between the songs, they praised the 20 odd thousand crowd present, with repeatedly proclaiming "Bangalore Rocks" (Flattery Works).

At 8:45, Megadeth (Dave Mustaine in the lead) came on stage to a thundering roar. Played all their major hits (all the songs sounded the same again).

All in all, the concert was a lot of fun. My neck was paining (with headbanging and all), legs were aching (8 hours of standing and jumping like there were fire ants in my pants), hands paining (from overdoing the devils horns ) and my head was paining (8 hrs of heavy metal).

- My classic Rock led Zep T-shirt (sorry Deke) was overwhelmed by 'Pantera', 'Sepultura', 'Lamb of God', 'Opeth' T's.
- Being a rock festival, food costed twice as much as usual.
- I was surrounded by people who were either stoned or hammered or both. Whats the point of attending a concert if you're not going to remember it tomorrow.
- Even though metal is not my type of music (Infact, I have doubts whether its music at all), I really enjoyed the concert. Maybe it was the clouds of weed smoke blown towards me.

'If this is the devils music, he's in for a lot of headaches'

Everybody's a closet listener. The scheme of things go like this; First you catch a snippet of the song then you detest the song, then you hum along when it plays on the radio or VH1, then the song gets stuck in you head, playing on and on, finally in a moment of weakness you are forced to buy the CD.

All my friends know that I'm a huge fan of rock, hard rock and all its different variations (except metal). From Kiss to Metallica to Deep Purple , from Queen to Meatloaf. The only two genres that aren't covered is pop (an occasional Michael Jackson) and rap (--) (Dance and tech-no isn't music).

Yet, being a very complex man, there are a few bands that exists out of the rock genre that I listen to, but will never ever admit in public. Unless its a party with a lot of drinks.

5 Bands I listen to, but will never admit publicly

5) George Michael / Wham :
The singing along started with 'careless whispers' and then to my shock I even enjoyed corny classics like 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go', 'faith', 'freedom', 'Everything She Wants', 'Father Figure', 'Monkey'(is that racist? Gotta ask Andrew Symonds). Tacky tunes, corny lyrics, yet somewhat addictive.

4) Savage Garden / Boyzone/ Ronan Keating :
'Run through the jungle with the wind in my hair and the sand in my fee-eee-eet'. I love singing those lines in a very high pitch voice. The animal song is such a wonderfully addictive song. Both their albums 'savage garden' and 'affirmation' are pretty good. Even the Darren Hayes' solo 'Insatiable' is good.

Why Boyzone? I can't stand N'sync, Backstreet boys, or other pre-adolescent jackasses, but I've heard Boyzone quite a few times. Maybe its because they rip classic Beegees and Billy Joel. Even a few Ronan Keating songs are good.

3) Village people/ Gloria Gaynor/ Diana Ross :
Disco is very annoying. It eats you up until you're compelled to make random alphabets with your body - 'Y', then 'M', then 'C' then 'A', or even point to the sky and then to the ground. Both 'Y.M.C.A' and 'In the navy' are irritating songs, yet I can't get up and shake a leg (more like an epileptic fit). 'I will survive' is another song that makes me sing along with it.



Also included in this genre are Diana Ross, Beegees (I really like Beegees), Boney M (Another Catchy band).

2) Roxette/ Ace of Base :
Glam Pop at its best. Catchy tunes, and very corny lyrics. "The Look", "Joyride", "The Sign", "Don't Turn Around", "Cruel Summer", "Listen to Your Heart", "It Must Have Been Love" have all been stuck in my head at one time or the other.

1) ABBA :
Whats wrong with Sweden. They are the champions in producing stuff that oare irritating, but can't do without - ikea, Roxette, Ace of Base and ABBA. Corny lyrics, annoying tunes, yet so very catchy. I blame my mother, She started playing 'Abba gold', and every time 'waterloo', 'Fernando', 'dancing queen','gimme gimme gimme' etc keeps ringing in my head.