Its already time to say thanks to you all…

It was sometime around early September when i decided that we should put up an open show exclusively for people who really like yodhakaa’s music because recently we have been doing lots of private shows and outstation gigs. Lots of people kept asking me to let them know when we do a concert. But for some reason or the other we were not able to do public shows where we can invite everyone.

Then it just struck me that we were nearing December 10th which will actually mark one year since Yodhakaa’s album release…i know that completing one year of the album release is not a big feat, but i thought this can be a good excuse to say thanks for all the people who have been instrumental in our growth. and yeah, i thought we should do something where we can give back something to the people who have believed in yodhakaa and have supported us through these years. I could not think of a better way than to put up an exclusive show for all of you. This is how the idea was born.

As soon as i decided that we started thinking of venues where we can do this. First i thought of Spaces, Besant Nagar (better known as dancer Chandralekha’s house). Personally its a very special place for us.But that venue was not available on Dec 10th and i was very keen not to change the date. Then i thought about a much better idea to do it at the beautiful alliance francaise auditorium because thats where it all started…

Yes, the very first Yodhakaa show (then it was called ‘Youdhaka’…can you believe?) was at this very same alliance francaise auditorium on the 22nd of october 2005 with a line up of musicians who are not a part of Yodhakaa today. It was our first gig, Tanvi was singing quite a lot of songs and we were doing a mix of music from all around the world. So yeah, we booked the alliance for our gig. We are really lucky to get it at such a short notice.

our invitation for the show...thats Subiksha Raman's hand that we shot for our album art last year

Once the show was booked all the ideas started pouring in. We thought of calling up all the musicians who have played for Yodhakaa (which is a big list by the way), our friends who have helped us in some way or the other and of course our followers who have inspired us to make good music…

 

We have worked quite hard to make this show as interesting as possible for everyone. We have planned for video projections for our songs and some surprise elements. Hope everyone will have a good time there. We really look forward to seeing everyone in the show…i guess i’ll have a lot to say tomorrow when the show is over =)

From Himalayas to Hong Kong to Nellore!

Its been a month of different extremes for yodhakaa. We started off with a show in the Himalayas , actually it will be unfair from our side to call it a show. It was a paid holiday for us. Thanks to Ram, Shobana and Aashish – the guys who are responsible for putting up this show. Ram and shobana are the couple who run this company called soulitudes which specialises in adventure travel. Aashish is the blessed guy who runs this resort called the Himalayan Village on the tip of this place called Sonapani, Upper Uttranchal (above Nainital).

We started our journey from Chennai to reach Delhi first, after a full fledged dinner we headed straight to Old Delhi railway station to catch the night train to Kathgodam (the foothills of Himalayas). We reached there early morning when it was pouring really heavily. We managed to get wet properly before we found our cabs that were waiting for us. Once we got into our cabs our adventure started with hair-pin bends and mud slides on our way. We stopped on our way for a little bite and then it was a glide to sonapani.

We got to Sonapani in four hours with Ram welcoming us with his new flip video recorder to document our arrival. From then on it was just documentation, photos and videos throughout. The place was so beautiful that we just could not stop clicking and recording. We wanted to capture every single thing. Plus we had the ace photographer Shiv Ahuja with our very own ‘awesome’ photographer Priya! But you really need to be up there to feel what it is. There was a really good bunch of people there who found it very easy to start a conversation with us about our music and our band. We also interviewed for a documentary film maker before the show.Our stage was set for the performance. It was a very nice small little hall that i had performed five years back. And as usual this time our line-up was different for Yodhakaa. I was playing bass, Susha on vocals and cajon,Pradeep on vocals and slide guitar and finally we have our very own Keba back on acoustic guitar.

Sonapani performance!

This was how informal the show was, and thats why we loved it.

It was one of the most peaceful shows we have ever played. The place, the vibe, the energy, everything was just perfect for Yodhakaa’s music. It was a trance to be there and playing music. I really felt something different when we played Jataa Kataa, something that i have never felt before. Maybe the song belongs to this place and it was her home pitch. so she was resonating all over.

I guess everyone present there felt that vibe from our music.That’s what they had to say after our performance. Personally it was a big leap for Yodhakaa, and it was a dream for me to stage Yodhakaa in this ambience and when it finally happened i did not know what to feel. Thanks for everyone who made this happen.

We came back from himalayas with lots of new fans for the band. But we had exactly one day to rehearse and get ready for the next thing. Project- Hong Kong. We came home packed our bags all over again and found our way to the airport again to catch Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. It was a tiring flight for all of us because we just did not have time to get out of the Himalayan hangover. But it was all until we reached Hong Kong. Once we got there it was wheels on our heels. We were just running around  like traders to shop. We bought quite a bit of instruments for the show. We had a really good bunch of people who were organising our show (wherever we go we somehow manage to be in the company of nice people). This time it was Ram-Sam (the gadget gurus), Narayana Moorthy (friend, philosopher and guide) and Ravi (all-in-all). They made sure it was a good trip for us on all aspects.

Hong Kong performance

It was a really nice auditorium. The toughest part of the tour was to communicate with the Chinese crew there to get our sound right. All my trade tricks fell flat. Finally we got a decent sound-check done with some sign language skills. We were actually playing with Harmonize projekt and La Pongal. So Yodhakaa was supposed to open the show. We did it in our own style, starting with ‘shree hari vallabhe’….. It was a small half hour set. We finished with Jataa kataa followed by an unexpected thunderous applause from the crowd. Then it was time for Harmonize Projekt to take over. For the first time we sold our cds on a foreign soil in exchange for dollars. So now we are an international selling band =)

Our recent show was a very new experience for us. We were booked to perform for the launch of Sathyam theaters’ multiplex launch. Where? in Nellore! i never ever thought Yodhakaa will get a chance to play in Nellore which is in Andhra. The event was a big set up to be attended by some of the biggest celebrities of the state. We took a road trip to Nellore and reached there in four hours. We had the taste of real Andhra food for lunch, and we had too much of it that we felt our mouth literally burning.

This is real spice!

 

We had an evening sound check, show was supposed to be on the next morning. We had nothing else to do than just to go back to the hotel and crash. The next morning was a proper celebrity affair, we were not even let in because of the high security. Thanks to our all-access passes, we made it to our green room. We started the whole ceremony with ‘Mudhakaraatha’, while we performed the song we saw on the giant screen that the theater was inaugurated with a traditional ribbon-cut. We did a small half-hour set and managed to pack up and  leave in between the crowds that were thronging to have a glimpse of their favorite stars. Then it was a reverse action replay to get back to Chennai.

So now you know why our last three shows have been different extremes literally! Will keep you all updated about our future Yodhakaa shows on our facebook page…

Moral of the story – Himalayas,Hong Kong,Nellore : highs,buys, spice (that was proper fourth standard material…sorry!)

bye bye september. we loved you.

artists are as artists can only be. distracted and very bad at promising anything except good music. we promised to update you guys every step of our tour, but with all the shows, lugging bags around (refer- kalyani’s monster bag) jumping on and off trains, mountains, building… and bridges, we barely had time (or internet connection) to blog. we are all back now in chennai, far from relaxed, only charged with more work as we return to take up our usual work and new projects, we are sure will keep us busy for a while.

breakfast rumination

lights, camera, action every waking second!

starting with the himalaya tour, we were happy to be traveling with two wonderful photographers- priya, our designated photographer and shiv ahuja, someone we met at ask earlier show in delhi. both had agreed to document our tour, so along with the instruments, we had tripods and camera’s to look after. half way up the himalayas (you know thats just a figure of speech) sonapani village unfurled green and surprisingly warm, with lovely hosts that baked us fresh cookies every evening! ram and ashish had put a great few days together, filled with fresh air, wonderful audience, smacking food and handful of cheerful children and altogether a great opportunity for us.

barely a peek into the peaks

the peaks were beautiful and elusive, everyday we’d get about three minutes to look above the clouds and find a faintest of lines, outlining the peak of nandadevi…  and no matter how many times we looked, every time we searched for it, it was higher up than we imagined. our cottages were cozy and every morning was a pleasure to wake up to, for we had rehearsals, shows and the himalayas lined up all day. in the process of all this, we were getting photographed continuously… who’d have thought to complain?!

as usual yodhakaa had a warm, reverent response while la pongal blasted open with sound and dance, we are sure echoed all over the mountain.

well, hello hong kong!

from the himalayas, we went to the absolute opposite. crowded, tench savvy hong kong, full of lights, metal, people and noise… and we loved it just as much! harmonize projekt, yodhakaa and la pongal came together in hong kong with a three hour long show that felt too short for all we had to say! three big things besides the concert happened in hong kong-

1. we bought loads of new instruments… in fact we travelled empty handed and empty boxed, and filled up the hard cases with instruments at ‘tom lee’ artseek unofficial supplier as of now, because all our instruments are currently from their store!

the beginning of a new relationship

music man, i am

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. we made three awesome apple purchases. two macbook pros and one i phone. thats two future tie ups right there

we really did inaugurate the apple store. believe us. music is larger than you thought. =/

3. the third and my most favorite- disneyland… where everything is magic. we rounded off our perfect and eventful tour with a far-from-peaceful twelve hours at disneyland hong kong.

stitch and sully. we now make our own cartoons.

closer to end of september, we have a couple of shows left, practices full swing, and our monthly newsletter in the making for you guys. watch out for updates, and remember, missing an artseek show is NOT an option. =)

We are off to the Himalayas!

ok… so finally we are all set to leave for our much awaited trip to the Himalayas. This is going to be awesome…we will keep you all updated about our every move. This time we have Keba, who is joining us after a long time. We are going to perform as Yodhakaa and La pongal in this trip… We also have ‘Doubts’ Kalyani with the band this time and she has already started her doubts. Priya is our official photographer in this trip. So there will be some amazing shots from all possible angles. Here are some to start with….Be with us on this trip.

kalyani disturbing our very first shot...

Work is worsheep...Keba with straightened hair...wow! he irons it everyday...

The Toccata tour Finale – Bangalore!

In terms of gigs, Bangalore was the most fun. We fell into the cliche and saved the best for the last.We had so much energy on-stage because after hanging out together for more than a week we all were sounding tight as a unit. All the seventy musicians were giving their best and it was just flowing. All of us were grooving and i could feel that from the eye contact and the appreciative smiles we exchanged with fellow musicians while someone plays an inspiring fill or lick.

Am trying to match up Dan's height with Dan's help!

It was a very hectic schedule in Bangalore. We were supposed to play four gigs in two days at The Bishop cotton school. So that was, a gig in the morning for school kids and a show in the evening open for public. We had to do this for two days. It was a decent auditorium and on the first day all of us were happy to see some really good sound equipments, because it was handled by Reynolds Sound company – one of the best guys in the business. The happiest was Darrell, our sound engineer. After our experience in Coimbatore, this looked like heaven with the kind of amps we got for our guitars and bass. I was set with the slick pearl drumkit that i had already played in Bangalore before.So the sound was such a relief with good monitors around.

The first show was for the junior bunch in their school. The auditorium was packed. The teachers had kept the students under control, but they just cut loose when Sunil grabbed the mic and asked them ‘why are you guys silent? this is not your classroom’. The roar that came in after that was epic. Judith came in and gave us her signature confidence boost smile and her animated four counts for us to start swinging the first song. The kids where having a time of their life, they knew that this was their only chance of glory.  We knew that the kids were enjoying, that gave us that extra energy to push our performance even more than we did in our earlier shows. The kids were not just letting us go and made us do an encore.

The evening show was attended by the musically inclined crowd of Bangalore. They were singing along some of the songs and applauding for solos. It was a good feeling to play for a crowd that knows what they are listening to. After the gig,we did not have much time to chill out. We had to quickly get ready for the next two shows and the feeling that its all going to be over the next day made it a bit sad for me.

The last day started with a show for the kids again, but for a much senior bunch this time. They knew how to have fun with our music and they were rocking more than us. The evening show was the best of the whole lot.The energy was just awesome. Because we knew this is our last shot we were all giving our bestest best on this one. I heard so much music in this show that i had never heard before. I played a long drum fill at the end of our last song and we came to a final bang and closed the show with rattling cymbals and horns. I remember Judith winking and giving me a thumbs up right after that. I knew it was not for the drum roll, but for the entire tour that we managed to pull off together collaborating. It was such a great gesture that just relieved me.

Look at all of us staring at our score sheets!

After the shows we had lots of pictures with each other. We just could not manage to gather the right words to explain how terrible we felt that this was over when we just got into the groove and started enjoying our music and each others company. But i guess all things in life are like that. I was personally very happy with what i learnt from this tour, its something that has helped me reach my next level as a performer, it surely is. For that matter it was such a big learning for Yodhakaa as a band overall. As a musician everyone of us got so much to take back, but we can work on what we learnt or no is what really matters.

Judith, Strings section, Brass band and Yodhakaa

Judith, as a band leader and a conductor is  such a big inspiration for me. The way she led this whole orchestra makes me wonder how this is done and how much does she go through to get this done. i find it so difficult to run a five piece band! Sunil, another guy who really made me wonder. Putting together such a big event in India with Seventy people from Ireland and India is not a joke. While others had sleepless nights partying, i guess he had sleepless nights working throughout for the next days logistics. I just LOVE to work with people who just don’t get tired of working. I think this is a way of living, this is not something you can learn in a fortnight.

Thats Sunil, the man who put this all together.

After the gig there was an after-party, everybody was there. I just wanted to peep in and say bye to Judith, Sunil and the rest of the gang. Everyone was having a great time there,i could see the job-done signs on most of the faces. I knew the party is going to hit the daylight. So i finished my byes and left. I was really not up for partying, personally that was not my time for partying. There was so much for me to finish for things that has to go right the next day.

And i always have a funny feeling towards partying in a tour.This might be weird, i always get a feeling that its not yet the time to party because there is still so much to do. And partying with musicians does not feel like a party for me. It looks like an extension of work.Instead, i like to jam when there are musicians around and see if there is something interesting that we can come up with. I might as well get back home and party with my friends and family.That sounds more like a real party for me.I don’t know if these are signs of becoming a workaholic, but even if its that way then am glad! I think finally we all stand for what our work has been right? and not for the number of hours we can stay awake in a party…

In the entire tour, the only thing i felt bad was about missing out on a chance of jamming with those wonderful musicians especially Tom,Alex,Stephanie,Dan, The amazing Irish folk band, David, Derrick and his brass band. I wish i had one session with them to make music. But i guess it will happen soon when we get to their place. I would love to make you all see how it will sound with them playing Yodhakaa’s music. I can already hear it in my head, and believe me it sounds great.you will all hear that soon. Will catch you all on the next blog =)

and the trip began

thats funny… i just recounted our toccata experience and hit the ‘publish’ button, only to find another similar recounting of the same story by siva! i guess having two stories could only be more fun to read than one =)

so like siva said, at the end of two shows, we knew it was going to be great fun for all of us. we packed our bags the next day to set off to coimbatore. arriving at the station, we found that sunil had booked two whole coaches for us and we all bundled ourselves into where ever we could find space and settled in for a night full of loud irish music and laughter.

arriving early next morning, we went straight to the hotel. a stand alone building on a fairly desolate road that was so generic it could have been in any part of india. hotel park plaza (or something like that) was a comfortable hotel with great breakfast and after we freshened up and ate, the band and yodhakaa got ready first so we could go sound check early on. we made a tiny mistake here, assuming we’d have time to come back for a wash and change, we left without our show clothes… you can imagine how that went. while all the girls were in flowery dresses and the band in formal black, yodhakaa alone stood out wearing black custom printed toccata tees!

slightly disappointed with the available sound equipment and the hall acoustics, darrel, the ever moving sound engineer, easily the most in-demand person of the show helped us set up and ran up and down the auditorium getting things ready.

in the meanwhile, yodhakaa had a little problem, with pradeep starting to fall sick, we did not know if he would make it for the show. we quickly prepared ourselves to take over pradeep’s parts in case he couldn’t make it so that the sections wont seem empty, and as the sound check started wrapping up we knew he wouldn’t be coming, and also that we’d be going up in the same clothes.

after the show, we wrapped dinner up for pradeep and went back to the hotel to find him still very sick. naveen and sean had already made plans to return to chennai, and now pradeep had joined them too. the guys wanted to come with us to mudumalai but clearly not badly enough (!)

toccata news

having been yodhakaa- ing for a while now, collaboration’s next step is with other bands, other musicians. just as we’d always wanted, some months ago we were asked for a show with an orchestra formed by musicians from ireland and london. obviously it sounded interesting to us, and though we were only to be doing covers, the concept was ‘nostalgia’ where they covered ultra super famous songs from about two decades ago in a complete choral, orchestrated arrangement which sounded like a great idea. where is the place for yodhakaa in this you ask? well, we were dubbed the ‘indian’ musicians and each of has different roles to play in this.

siva as usual had the unavoidable group leader tag, but also being the drummer, he woke up one morning to pages and pages of sheet music drum notation! honestly he never though he would be playing songs like ‘jailhouse rock’ and ‘we love the champions’ looking at the score! nevertheless, he poured over it, brushing up his sight reading and reminding everyone how professional the toccata musicians will be and awesome they will be at sight reading and playing and everything else.

pradeep became the musical arranger and our personal conductor, as he was most fluent with following sheet music and keeping us all together. he also played the slideguitar and was expected to fill in, improvise and bring in the ‘indian-ness’

sean played the guitar and had a pretty prominent job, being the only guitarist in the whole orchestra and had a large amount of homework every night. he loved some songs… and he hated some songs.

susha was the indian singer and had designated bars where she had to improvise vocally, besides generally jingling along the show with her tambourine. but the catch in her designated job was, to catch say, bar 22 to 35 in a particular song, meant to listen to song and continuously sight read. i tell you, silently following and sight reading the song is the easiest to mess up.

naveen the bassist was naveen the bassist, impeccable at following the songs and tight with his groove. through the show, naveen and siva formed a partnership soon to be joined by one more person…

the last few days, before judith (the toccata musical director) who we all secretly feared because we knew the standard she expected and was used to was probably high, arrived with her whole group we rehearsed the songs blindly making sure we’d be ready for anything. so with us turning pages and sticking verbatim to what was written and a slight anxiety in coming together with a huge orchestra we had never met before, trying some different ideas, going straight to show with just one day of rehearsal definitely was eating our minds… siva’s and pradeep’s more than anyone else’s.

our first two shows were in chennai, at the sri mutha venketasubbarao auditorium at the lady andal school premises and at le royal meridian. as soon as we walked into the auditorium on the first day for a small check and possible rehearsal, judith greeted us warmly and immediately settled with siva and pradeep and started discussing ideas and music. we’d barely settled in with our music and things, when a thin wiry boy got on stage and suddenly there was a splatter of foot steps! completely taken aback, we watched transfixed as this boy tap danced his way to glory right there… something we (definitely i) had never seen before from such close quarters. and the thing was he would never do it for more than three seconds… so it was broken little pieces of practice that we watched and just that, had us all wide eyed.

as the choir started arriving, and we started going through the songs, we realized that the arrangement was MUCH larger than we’d been prepared for, and many things just didn’t sound the way we’d imagined it to be, because all we’d had uptil then was a bunch of symbols on some lines… slowly we started hearing the songs and realized we’d have to do some serious re arranging and re figuring out our parts… the night was sleepless for siva and pradeep!