We rocked 10 downing in Hyderabad yesterday. The organizer of the Rock in India festival, DNA networks had asked motherjane to do a buildup gig at Hyderabad. Now we thought this would be a good way of testing out the new AKG in- ears that we now endorse for Harmon and so we agreed. As luck would have it the equipment got stuck in Mumbai and we would only get it in hand on the 10th (ie today)
The other good reason to do the show was to play again in Hyderabad. We had not played there for more than a year now and we wanted to reach a new audience and play our new songs to them. Turned out to be a brilliant idea!
In spite of the organizers look of petrifaction when he realized that we would not be doing any covers,( I kept getting subtle hints from the management of the pub that their crowd would expect some popular covers) we just dismissed the request with our nicest possible smiles. Someone even told me of how Parikrama just did a show two days back and were even asked to do summer of 69! Of course they scoffed at the idea and did AC/DC, etc etc.
The man on the scene from DNA, one Mr.Ashwin Ramaswamy was in fact pretty frazzled when I met him in the DNA office in Bangalore for some co-ordination meet a few days ago. He realized that we would not be playing covers and that spelt out possible disaster for him since he had never heard motherjane before and had no idea what our originals would sound like. I can tell you with a definite sense of personal satisfaction that Ashwin is now a big believer in motherjane. That is one more person that we consider a close friend now. It’s amazing how you build them up gig by gig.
However here comes the main point of this blog. It was this gem of realization that was actually born out of this conversation that I had with Ashwin after his initial protests on the only original set-list that we were going to play. He was worried about this approach in a high class pub which featured mainly page 3 crowds and not the regular black shirts that patronize the indie rock scene.
I remember telling him in mock frustration that if people had persisted with these kind of attitudes we would have had a scene where the Beatles would have been asked to cover Elvis. I mean probably even Metallica, or a Maiden or Pink Floyd etc would still be doing covers of the King! We would go to a music shop and the shelves would have only one artist – Elvis! To give the guy credit, he didn’t push the issue further even if his duty or rather his office may have demanded it.
It is always a mistake to patronize your audience and say that they will like this or that kind of music and it’s high time that we embrace this realization. Motherjane will always believe in this and we once again proved a point yesterday when we played to a bunch of beautiful people who just seemed to warm to the band with every new song just as we warmed up to them. They just stood by us and kept egging us on for one song after the other. There were even scenes with requests for encores!
There were even a few couples who came up to us after the show and said that they would now actually travel to Bangalore to catch the Rock in India fest on march 14th.
Never underestimate your audience when you perform what you love to play. You may be very surprised at what you can achieve. Even better is the fact that they may be surprised with their ability and inclination for a new music genre that gets them high! Like the wise men said, the finger that points to the moon is not the moon itself”
Good music of any type, is still just another finger and everyone, everyone is looking for the moon.
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