Shall we have the facts out of the way, as I’m dying to let you know? I’m an Indian. I love Bangalore. I love rock. Fanatical - I repeat - fanatical about a certain Paki band. The ‘times played’ count on my iTunes for Duur is a number you won’t come across in Math until Grade Eight. Now, Bangalore is the Mecca of rock in India. And Strings were performing.
Brimming with anticipation of an evening with a band whose guitarist I idol-worship. If excitement were fluid, I was first drenched and drowned until Friday evening arrived. Excusing myself early from office to ensure I be there at time, I weaved my way through Bangalore’s unsympathetically heavy weekend traffic and was at the spot about an hour ahead of time. Had the tickets - and the complimentary Colgates - with me, waiting for a friend and two Mutineers to show up at Palace Grounds. They did, although one of them lost her way in traffic and ended up paying a nice little visit to the King in the Palace itself, before promptly making a U-turn and heading for Palace Grounds. But they showed up on time, and after being checked out frisked by a Terrier security guard who mercifully looked far from homosexual, I entered the grounds.
Cyanides, I guess, were playing then. I lost the name in the crowd that were getting restless, and they finally booed the band out of the stage because - and I must agree with them - everyone were here for one reason.
Plunging the stage into darkness, the bloke on the keyboards came up and did a quick sound-check. Keeping him company was the percussionist, a lead guitarist and a bass guitarist. Yet no signs of the Paki duo we all waited for. But a few hundred sound-checks later, they walked in. The vocalist, clothed in a no-nonsense khaki jacket, and the brilliant guitarist wearing a tight khaki t-shirt. Surprisingly, they began with their Shootout at Lokhandwala hit, Aakhri Alvida.
That woke the crowd up, it did.
Faisal took a few minutes for a chat as Bilal fiddled around with his new special red-and-white guitar. Talked about how he loved Bangalore, the Habba, that the crowd were awesome and the usual stuff an artist says at every venue. Before - and we weren’t hearing things - a certain lead played in the background. Anjane had arrived.
That was it. That got the feet moving, the arms in the air and the mouth yelling. Like a Pied Piper, Bilal got the crowd screaming huey, begaaney kyon! almost at will, as Faisal generously pointed the mike at the hundreds of people who had succumbed to their sound. When they were done, the crowd went ‘once more’ before Faisal silenced them.
‘This is a very special song’, he claimed. The lead began, and I lost what he said in the screaming crowd, catching just one word, ‘Spiderman’. Oui, na jaanay kyon it was.
And like only Faisal Kapadia can, when he went dil bhuja gaya, ghar jal gaya, na jaanay kyon, na jaanay kyon, we were with him. Perhaps relating to the song itself, perhaps lost in thought or rock, but we were lost somewhere. A rock cover for their finest song, and if truth be told, nothing short of exceptional.
What now, then? Three of their best songs and we wanted more. Took us a while to figure it out, but next up was probably a song that changed their entire careers. Into it’s sixteenth year, yet oh-so-memorable, Sar Kiyae was playing, and it got Faisal all nostalgic, as he went back to the 90s and talked about the gap of eight years. Enough talk, however, and only one word escaped the audience, before he finally put us out of our misery and struck the right note. With Bilal’s fingers holding F# firmly, and the drums picking up the beat, Faisal walked up to the front mike.
The crowd waited, and he gave us Duur. Enough said.
Zinda! screamed the crowd. Faisal replied, ‘we have a few technical problems, we can’t play that song’. Of course, he was screwing with us. When the interlude began, and yeh hai meri kahani was underway, the crowd were lost again, for the second time that evening. As Faisal set it up Anwar Maqsood’s magically penned monologue, Bilal took it forward with that awesome solo piece.
What followed next, though, was quite interesting. A tribute to Bollywood’s yesteryears, as Strings played - and mixed - rock versions of what are probably their favourites. Starting with meri umar ke naujaawanon, and as they broke into om shanti om, it was all so clear - classics are classics. Koi kahe, kehta rahe followed, mixed with main tera tu meri jaane saara hindustaan, at which Faisal asked us to sing the chorus with pakistan in it. We - of course - obliged, why, we’d even go main tera tu meri jaane saara australia if he wanted.
As the vocals paused and the rhythm continued, Faisal dropped a quick emotional line about how he likes this friendship between countries, even videotaping the crowd’s Pakistanised version for their personal record, before breaking into yeh dosti and the insturmental from Don. And then, three more tributes, beginning with aa dekhe zara, milgaya, hum ko saathi milgaya and finally ending it with yeh jawaani. At the end of the extended tribute, ten-odd minutes of rock where Bollywood was celebrated, we were both tired and overwhelmed in love for music. Unsurprisingly.
Next followed a rock lullaby, and expect Strings to carry it off - Soja, before they finally wrapped up their show - and nearly the show itself - with Dhaani. With Adeel on the lead guitar, Shaakir on the bass, Haider on the keyboards and Yasir on the drums, they gave us an evening I’ll find it hard to forget.
The MC hopped on stage, a Carmelite surely. It’s only at Mt. Carmel’s in Bangalore that they teach you to pronounce the word “more” like the way an American would pronounce the word “mow”. So, when she went, “Bangalore, do you want mow?”, ours was an affirmative response that very nicely asked her to get off stage and have the music back.
Parikrama followed soon after, and after a few zillion sound checks (again), their lead vocalist mercifully went ‘to hell with the technicalities, let’s rock’, before giving us their original compositions. In walked Saif, and as women went ‘ooh’ and guys went ‘wtf’, a rather off-colour Saif picked up his guitar and settled himself next to the lead-vocalist. And as a red T-shirt hugged his short frame with the word ‘Hendrix’ on it, Saif and Parikrama - as they claimed - ‘kicked some ass’.
But after the Strings hangover, their performance eventually turned out to be uninteresting, pepped up by the appearance of Robin Uthappa and Sreesanth who were at the concert for I-don’t-really-know-what but were - and this must be a crime - gifted a guitar each. A Fender, for Haysoos’ sake. Second time I’ve seen Saif gift a guitar and it wasn’t me. Criminal.
Either ways, the cops arrived and the lead vocalist was eventually forced to gesture at Saif to put an end to the show. Which they did, and as Ms. Carmelite read out the sponsor’s name, I walked out of Palace Grounds with an aftertaste of Dhaani, the Zinda lead still ringing in my ears.
Awesome, simply awesome, and I can’t wait for Strings to be back. Faisal and Bilal, guys, here’s a request from your biggest fan: for the sake of Bangalore, yeh aakhri alvida na ho.
