My Rocking Life

If there is one aspect of my living in the land of milk and honey that is hands-down without a bad side, not even a gray lining and is 100% Agmark certified all Good, then its this – I can go to rock concerts here.

I got into rock at around age 13 and have stayed firm to that despite being comfortable with my other aspect of enjoying carnatic vocal and instrumental with all my iyer proclivity for it. Soon as my sister grew up, I had a partner in crime and she took to the genre of music like fish to water. Then we had a in-sync period where we would shut ourself in the room, block out all sources of light – natural or otherwise and headbang without inhibition to the raw and elevating sounds of Metallica and U2. Our parents knew about it, yet they were too scared to see us showing symptoms of possession, so generally let us do out thing uninterrupted.

Then the disciple took over from the Guru and went leaps ahead; she turned traitor to the cause of legitimate rock and became a boy-band fanatic like all the air-headed pre-teens. She decided that she didn’t think techno was too synthetic, embraced mainstream western music in all its commercial crassness and we started to go our separate ways since.

Here, I met Gowtham in September of 2006 and learned that he is one of ‘us’ [Us being the lost tribe of Rock worshippers who all died out when natural selection favored pop worshippers]. He told me that I had missed going to the Aerosmith open-air concert, right here at the steel city [AEROSMITH – I am not worthy!!!…*groveling actions*]. We then proceed to, as a group (having been joined by the ultra cool Avanthika) haunt the nearby concerts, thus providing me to strike off the following Gods of Rock from my list of “Perfomances to see before the artists die…” [I mean, C’mon they live lives of – Heavy Fuel a.k.a Sex, Drugs and Violence]

Guns and Roses

The debate of Slash vs. Axl Rose aside, this was a totally awesome experience and I was so thrilled to be right there when the strains of ‘November Rain’ filled the stadium. Me and fellow rock head Gow went all out and fell for ‘There was a time’ from the forthcoming Chinese Democracy and I will be happy to endorse that there is a whole lot of ROCK in GnR left to unleash into the mundane universe!

Nickelback

What is not to love about Nickelback? They are a quintessential basic rock band – heady guitar and drums sounds, Meaningful lyrics and a very good frontman. We had a totally wonderful time at the concert, despite us reaching there a full 3 hours after the concert began [thanks to Friday evening office traffic at downtown Forbes Avenue], our loss was missing Three Days Grace play. I wore my ‘Motley Crew’ rock Tee and got appreciation from the passersby and then I knew (probably for the first time) what complete acceptance by a crowd feels like!

That was the day I taught Aafiya to make the universal symbol of rock, which she is yet to master, and say “Rooooocckkkk!” with attitude, which she has down to pat :D

G3 – Joe Satriani

This one was not my idea. Admittedly I listened to ‘Rubina’s Blue Sky’ on some lazy Saturday afternoon in fm and introduced Joe Sat to my sister. I don’t accept any responsibility to the consequences which finally have now led to her becoming the High Priestess of G3 worship. Any how, Gow and Sow by their independent efforts sold me into going for this concert. My hesitation was incremented by the fact that the concert happened 2 weeks after my having imitated Jill [who came tumbling after] in my staircase. Nevertheless, I went, it was a different parallel universe where were almost no vocals and Guitar was all and I was glad for the learning.

Now I am all hungry to catch the following (In no particular order or associated priority) –

• Aerosmith
• Sting
• Bryan Adams
• U2
• Metallica

[At the mention of each of these illustrious names, the author goes back into grovelling slave mode]

These are just in my “MANDATORY” tag. I would love to catch other performances of significant bands and Individuals who I admire, during my stay here, given of course the requirements of - company to go with, travel to and from venue, reasonable ticket prices are met.

Let me wind down the post, by dedicating it to Gowtham who married a wonderful girl called Kavi on 6^th in Chennai.
Congratulations Buddy!
God Bless and hope you guys, ROCK!

Rain