Thought Overflow

Ok well, I got there (at the venue) at around 4.00-4.30pm. They didn’t allow anyone to take water bottles inside (the fuckers). But they did have a couple of stalls giving water for free… it’s a totally different issue that these stalls were totally over-crowded (almost like a mini moshpit just for the water!). My friend bought a T-shirt (800/-)… and we waited for something (anything) to begin, while they played the local FM radio stations. Initially, the sound quality sucked. I was disappointed.

Finally, at around 6pm, things got underway. FTN (Campus Rock Idols winner - 2007) opened, and well, frankly, they didn’t get a very warm response. They played a couple of RATM songs, and a koRn song. They appeared to be clueless on stage, though… probably a little intimidated by the crowd. (You’ve probably heard of the online petitions to prevent the band from performing, etc etc). They weren’t all that horrible, although I think the lead singer has a voice that would well suit S.O.A.D songs more than RATM. The sound quality was horrible. The distortion was either too noisy or too loud (and we weren’t even that close to the speakers).
After they were done, Parikrama took the stage. They got a much better welcome, and they played pretty good music too. The lead singer can really scream high-pitched. They played only OCs, and their first 2 songs were reminiscent of AC/DC. Their experience showed (apparently been together playing music for 15 years), when they stopped a song in the middle to stop the moshing that had started in the front, and then re-started the song right from where they had stopped, managing to keep all instruments perfectly in sync with each other. I really need to mention the violinist… fucker went crazy. He was playing it faster than a guitar lead! The rotund lead guitarist tripped and fell backwards while trying to finish a song (he still continued guitaring off the floor, though)… although my friend(s) think he lay down on his back on purpose, just for the effect.

The third band to take the stage was Lauren Harris (the daughter of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris). They were pretty good, but I didn’t like her singing… then again, that could just be me not particularly fond of female vocalists in rock (eg : Amy Lee). By now the crowd was a little impatient for Maiden. When Lauren Harris were done, I bought myself a 50/- ridiculously overpriced, not-too-tasty sandwich (satisfied some hunger, though). We even managed to drink some water (had to use my hands, they ran out of glasses) and watched people jumping over the barricade from the 900/- pass section, even though the police were standing right there (some of these poor guys got hit pretty hard by lathis, too, btw).

Finally, at around, 8.15pm, the lights all went out, and Maiden started off with a song called “Different World”, just as I had predicted. (It’s one of the only fast songs off the new album). The crowd went wild (obviously), and when I jumped, I could see this whole sea of camera phones trying to take photos/videos. For the first few seconds, I couldn’t even hear the music (the crowd was that noisy). They then played “These Colours Don’t Run” and “Brighter Than A Thousand Suns”, both from the same album. Then, they mentioned about playing some songs from a different era, playing “Wrathchild” (which they were asked to dedicate to the recently passed away lead singer of Indian rock band Moksha) and “The Trooper”, immediately going back again to the new album with the song “The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg”, the response to which was awesome. They played a couple of other songs, like “Fear Of The Dark”, etc, “ending” the show with a track called “Iron Maiden”, during which this massive tank came out of the stage. The cannon turned to face the crowd, smoke billowing out of it. The hatch opened, and a giant Eddie (Iron Maiden mascot) came out of it, looking at the crowd with binoculars. The crowd went wild. The tank was pretty big… pretty impressive a prop, if you want to call it that.

This was at 9.10pm. Maiden had played for just about an hour. Obviously, that was too short. We were just not ready to go, and the whole crowd started chanting “we want more, we want more”. Obviously, they came back, playing stuff like “2 Minutes To Midnight”, etc etc
I wouldn’t call it an encore since they performed at least 5 songs (half an hour) after they restarted. It seemed more like a pre-made decision to take a short break. By the way, during the “encore”, there was a 15-foot figure of Eddie walking around on stage (looked pretty heavy… feel sorry for the guy who had to wear that and walk around). They ended with “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, and to my surprise, didn’t play “The Wicker Man” at all.

The stage setup was awesome, with really really huge posters of various artwork (all featuring Eddie) as the backdrop. They changed the posters periodically, and the lighting was spectacular as well.

By the way, the one track I won’t forget was probably “Fear Of The Dark”… the whole fucking crowd was going “oo-oo-ooo-ooooo-ooo” in tune with the soft guitar riff at the beginning of the song. And there was so much jumping around that I could smell the dust getting through the thick cloths they had put on the floor.

3 more things to mention… after the show was done, there was quite a bit of pushing to get out… the organizers should have made the exit gates a little wider, maybe.
Secondly (I wonder why I didn’t mention this before), I must mention the huge queue that formed for using the toilet This was before any of the music started, though, and the line just seemed to be really really long. When me and my friend bought our cold drinks, we actually seriously thought of joining the line as soon as we finished the drink. We were sure that by the time our turn came to use the toilets, we would need to go And finally, on coming out of the venue, it was really fun to see the looks on some of the auto drivers’ faces. There’s like this army of black t-shirt wearing people, and loads of people wanted autos. I won’t forget the look on the face of this one auto driver who actually refused to stop even though so many people were waving at him.

Here are a couple of good stories about the concert:
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/36292/blore-headbangs-to-iron-maiden.html (video didn’t play in Firefox for me… maybe Adblocked)
http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/18/stories/2007031821760100.htm (with a good picture of one of the stage backgrounds)

All in all, though, the entire trip was good fun for me. No hassles, except for the smell of what smelt like sour curd on my berth on the train back home, but that’s another story.