It’s not every day that an Indian band gets a chance to tour the UK, and when the British Council Soundpad tour came through Swarathma was super excited! 5 cities, one major festival and a chance to perform for an international audience: stuff rock ‘n roll dreams are made of!
We spent the first couple of days in London, taking in the sights (sneering at Buckingham Palace because Mysore Palace was way cooler, and marvelling at Trafalgar Square and the Potrait Gallery), getting lost in the Underground and doing a live music video shoot at Westminster University. At the end of the second day we stepped out to see two massive tour buses each the size of a 3BHK pulling in. They had two floors, a lounge in the lower deck with a TV and a PS2, with a frig that would fill up with the good stuff every night, bunks with their own LCD screens in the upper deck: it was out of this world. It was our home for 10 days!
Brighton was the first stop: we were to play at The Great Escape, one of Europe’s largest new music festivals with some of the world’s best upcoming bands. The whole city was part of it with 300 bands playing at over 50 venues, the vibe was amazing. We played two gigs there, winning over a mostly white crowd most of whom were part-bemused, part-fascinated, part-befuddled by this bunch of six wildly colourful ‘almost-psychedelic’ looking chaps. I remember at one point, when we played our song “Yeshu Allah aur Krishna”, the sun came out through the dull grey morning. We spent the rest of the time strolling on the pebble beach, meeting and jamming with other bands.
I must mention our crew members, our guardian angels, Mark and Pete. As Tour Manager and Backline Tech their responsibility was to ensure that we delivered our best, and suffice it to say that they showed us a whole new world of professionalism in performance. From the meticulous preparation in terms of logistics to ensuring our guitars were in ready and amped, from tips on our performance to a good bit of ribbing and friendly banter to keep our spirits up – they did it all with such passion. A band like ours is used to an elaborate sound check, fussing over every little detail till we get it right. But things in the UK were very different. Most venues had up to 5 bands playing and there were just 10 minutes in which to change over. We ended up playing many of the shows with no sound check, something we’d never have agreed to if it weren’t for the fact that Mark was right on the ball, and made everything run super smooth!
The days passed in a haze of gigs, some packed houses, some a little quiet. But at every one of them we gave it our best and the crowd responded. We even made them sing “Ee Bhoomi” along with us! I suppose it proves that music written with courage and conviction has no real language.
It’s not every day that an Indian band gets a chance to tour the UK, and when the British Council Soundpad tour came through Swarathma was super excited! 5 cities, one major festival and a chance to perform for an international audience: stuff rock ‘n roll dreams are made of!
We spent the first couple of days in London, taking in the sights (sneering at Buckingham Palace because Mysore Palace was way cooler, and marvelling at Trafalgar Square and the Potrait Gallery), getting lost in the Underground and doing a live music video shoot at Westminster University. At the end of the second day we stepped out to see two massive tour buses each the size of a 3BHK pulling in. They had two floors, a lounge in the lower deck with a TV and a PS2, with a frig that would fill up with the good stuff every night, bunks with their own LCD screens in the upper deck: it was out of this world. It was our home for 10 days!
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Brighton was the first stop: we were to play at The Great Escape, one of Europe’s largest new music festivals with some of the world’s best upcoming bands. The whole city was part of it with 300 bands playing at over 50 venues, the vibe was amazing. We played two gigs there, winning over a mostly white crowd most of whom were part-bemused, part-fascinated, part-befuddled by this bunch of six wildly colourful ‘almost-psychedelic’ looking chaps. I remember at one point, when we played our song “Yeshu Allah aur Krishna”, the sun came out through the dull grey morning. We spent the rest of the time strolling on the pebble beach, meeting and jamming with other bands.
I must mention our crew members, our guardian angels, Mark and Pete. As Tour Manager and Backline Tech their responsibility was to ensure that we delivered our best, and suffice it to say that they showed us a whole new world of professionalism in performance. From the meticulous preparation in terms of logistics to ensuring our guitars were in ready and amped, from tips on our performance to a good bit of ribbing and friendly banter to keep our spirits up – they did it all with such passion. A band like ours is used to an elaborate sound check, fussing over every little detail till we get it right. But things in the UK were very different. Most venues had up to 5 bands playing and there were just 10 minutes in which to change over. We ended up playing many of the shows with no sound check, something we’d never have agreed to if it weren’t for the fact that Mark was right on the ball, and made everything run super smooth!
The days passed in a haze of gigs, some packed houses, some a little quiet. But at every one of them we gave it our best and the crowd responded. We even made them sing “Ee Bhoomi” along with us! I suppose it proves that music written with courage and conviction has no real language.