Tag Archives: U2

Da High Tribute to U2 by The Beatroute at High Spirits, Pune

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It’s not often that you get to enjoy 80s music these days. The once ubiquitous rock pub where you could sip a leisurely beer while tripping on Mr. Mister and Culture Club on loop is fast being replaced by live gig joints: not that I’m complaining! However, when news broke that a U2 tribute night was being organized at a nice alfresco bar not too far from home, we thought: why not? It’s probably too early to be paying tribute to a band still going strong, but given the bleak possibility of the aging rebels from Dublin ever making it to Indian shores, this would be the next best thing.

I’d never heard The Beatroute before. According to their Facebook and Reverbnation pages, they’re a Mumbai-based Alternative Groove Rock band that started off by playing covers of songs by bands ranging from U2 and Incubus to Maroon5, Coldplay, Wolfmother, etc. They’ve recently started composing and playing original music, which they will be releasing soon. However, we’re always all ears when it comes to new acts on the scene so, after a lazy Sunday afternoon siesta, we took off towards the High Spirits pub at Koregaon Park – a nice enough venue for live music, but just a trifle small and unsuited for large turnouts.

We needn’t have worried. For quite a while, it seemed as if The Beatroute’s active audience would not cross the dozen mark, though a bunch of late entrants did fill the place to some extent. The band started off bang on schedule which I liked, and without the prolonged and annoying sound checks that are the bane of any paying audience they launched effortlessly into ‘Elevation’ and surprised many, including myself, with their tight sound. A fairly decent attempt at covering a band that often sounds deceptively easy. The good feeling persisted a few songs later, with an unexpected original called ‘Roll the Dice’ in which the rhythm section came into its own, with a sprightly drum solo tossed in to boot!

The Beatroute, formed in late 2010, is still young as bands go, but you wouldn’t know it from the ease with which vocalist Greg Sarma hit the high notes that Bono is much loved for; or from Vignesh Iyer’s neat ‘The Edge’ imitation (woolen cap and all), his red PRS and Boss GT10 weaving a loop of nice chorus-y delays that characterize the Irish band’s sound. The show-stealer however, was Eeshan Tripathi, the talented, classically trained pianist who played his Roland Fantom G6 with a nonchalant ease that was a joy to behold. The “long-haired freak on the bass” (Biswajit Chakroborty) and a replacement drummer (Toobloo, really?) standing in for founding member Gopal Dutta who, with Tripathi, branched out from regional-rockers Arth to form The Beatroute, complete the lineup.

There were glitches, sure – the guitars were barely audible on the left speakers for a lot of the songs. The Beatroute would be well served with a full-time sound guy on board, a role currently being moonlighted, one understands, by their manager. But on a lot of songs, the band’s love for the material shone through. I was particularly looking forward to my favourite U2 number ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ and there was an awkward “Oh no!” moment when Greg started the verse two bars too early but the rest of the gang caught up quickly and it was smooth sailing right till the beautifully executed arpeggio outro. I, for one, was happy though it was becoming increasingly clear that the audience members weren’t exactly die-hard U2 admirers.

The next track, a groovy, funky love song called ‘Glow’, was carried effortlessly by the talented Eeshan and extremely well-received by the audience. The band seemed rather thrilled by the fact that the crowd was enjoying their originals more than the U2 covers they were ostensibly there to watch!

Next up, a rather ordinary cover of an extraordinary song: ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ from U2’s Grammy-winning Joshua Tree album. Everything was wrong: the guitars were turned too low, the vocals seemed off, the band didn’t seem to feel the song at all. Sensing a low, they quickly launched into a piano piece that morphed seamlessly into the jivey ‘Sweetest Thing’. Now I’ll be the first to confess that this is NOT my favourite U2 track by any stretch of imagination, not in the least because Boyzone is singing the chorus! However, surprisingly for me, this was the rendition of the evening – beautifully done, with the audience swaying and singing along.

The band seemed to grow massively in confidence after that, playing ‘One’ with panache. If only that acoustic guitar patch had been set up correctly for the vocalist! He did his best, sure, but there was something wrong with the way it was sounding, and Vignesh caught it right away when he traded in the PRS for the Walden acoustic for the next number, a jazz-funk original that was most enjoyable. I found myself marveling at these youngsters who delivered original material with such élan. In the 80s and 90s, any “good” band that dared inject so many “OC’s” into a tribute set would surely be booed off. Times have changed, it seems, and for the better!

Another original, ‘9 to 5′ featured in the set between excellent covers of two songs straddling opposite ends of the band’s oeuvre; the haunting ‘With Or Without You’ and ‘Hold Me,Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me’ (from the Batman Forever soundtrack). With the former, the guitarist finally found his perfect sound, and it couldn’t have come at a better time! The latter kicked off with a host of keyboard runs and scratchy record effects, which set up the track rather nicely.

I must confess I had a great time overall. The show ended rather abruptly at ten thirty, with an aborted version of ‘Vertigo’ and one of the rare moments on the show when the band’s lack of maturity in handling live situations coming to the fore (the other was at the beginning when an over-excited Greg yelled out “How we doin’, Pune?” to a deafened and rather amused audience). The best takeaway for me that night was the fact that all the material was enjoyable, including the original stuff that we hadn’t even expected to be brought to the table.

With a better sound guy and some more flying hours, this band could wind up quite the live act to watch out for. They certainly had us in high spirits as we left the venue. More power The Beatroute!

Anoop Bhat

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U2 Tribute by The Beatroute at High Spirits, Pune

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Nayab Siddiqui

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The Beatroute – Live at Pizza By The Bay

They say the routes of music lie in the beats of sound, and thats what the emerging Bombay based band,The Beatroute adheres to. The Beatroute, that comprises of ex Vayu drummer Gopal Dutta, Vignesh on guitar, Biswajeet on bass, Eeshan on keyboards, and Greg on lead vocals, recently played a gig at Pizza by the Bay, previously known as Not Just Jazz by the Bay. This new and upcoming band performed a wide array of songs ranging from their originals, to covers of U2, Coldplay and the sensational Michael Jackson.

Despite the fact that they are new to the world of live performances, their music seemed to stir our attention. With a professional like Gopal in the band who has had years of experience and other band members full of enthusiasm and zeal, they kickstarted the show with Wolf Mothers ‘Joker and the Thief’, which was very well done. In their second song which was a cover of U2s ‘Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me’, we saw a very focused Eeshan almost magically produce a techno sound through the motion-sensing interface on his keyboard, as if he was talking to it with his fingers!

Then came one of their originals called ‘Nine to five’, about the working class people in the city. The song was a tad shaky here and there and a little monotonous, but a good attempt at an original nonetheless. Next up was another U2 song, ‘Where the streets have no name’ followed by another original called ‘Glow’, which again seemed to lack the punch and vigor of ‘Nine to five’.

Next up, The Beatroute went into a wonderfully done medley of Chris Isaaks ‘Wicked Game’ and Maroon 5s ‘She Will Be Loved’. Subsequently, they played another cover of ‘Smooth Criminal’ by Michael Jackson, which was completely off beat and too fast a version of that song to be sung. It sounded like a cacophony of sound, with a mix of different instruments and bad timing. Next up, they broke out into another one of their originals called, ‘This Is Bound To Happen’, which had an electronica feel to it, making it a good listen.

Then came Eeshans solo performance on the keyboard, with an assortment of ‘Chariots Of Fire’, ‘The Godfather Theme’ and ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’. Immediately after which, out of the blue, I heard Greg screaming out happy birthday to someone, with Eeshan hastily filling in a 2 minute happy birthday tune on his keyboard.

Later on, Gopal Dutta played a 15 minute drum solo, which was astounding, highlighting his prowess as one of the most technically skilled musicians in the band. The best cover the band played was ‘Sunday Morning’ by Maroon 5; it proved that they have an umpteen amount of potential in them, considering that theyve only been playing live for a few months. ‘Clocks’ was one song where they couldnt get their timing right however, and towards the end of this Coldplay number, everyone in the band seemed to be a little perplexed.

Amidst this ambience of good music and dim lights, a man came up to the microphone and proposed to a woman, on stage, while Greg retreated into the background. Apparently, this wasnt a prank, but the real deal. In so many years of having attended gigs, this certainly was a first!

After this unusual saga, the band played a rather flat version of Porcupine Trees ‘Lazarus’ and a soothing version of Billy Joels ‘Piano Man’ which made everyone in the house sing along and come together for that moment. They proceeded to play an impressive rendition of ‘Drive’ by Incubus, followed by ‘Slither’ by Velvet Revolver that had a good solo by Vignesh. All in all, a band heavily inspired by Coldplay and U2, The Beatroute will probably go a long way.

Sharon Flynn

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St. Patrick’s Day – at the Hard Rock Cafe

St.Patricks Day (17th March) came alive at Hard Rock Café, New Delhi. A lot of people showed up to celebrate it, since one of Delhi’s greatest bands “Cyanide” was playing, not to mention the Beer Drinking Competition that was to be held! The show started at 10:30pm with Cyanides cover of U2s Vertigo. The band covered a lot of Irish bands like U2, The Corrs, The Cranberries, and Snow Patrol, given that St.Patricks Day is an Irish Festival. Although they played a new original Money the band mainly concentrated on playing covers.

Finally, it was time for the main attraction of the night, the beer drinking festival. The members of Cyanide started off by downing their glasses real quick. After they were done the five teams were called right onto the stage amidst a lot of cheering from the vast numbers of people whod thronged to witness the competition.

Cyanide took over the stage again post competition with a cover of Yellow by Coldplay, and dedicated it to the disaster stricken people of Japan. This was followed by Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and the gig closed with Elevation by U2. Rohan Solomon was at his energetic best and his on-stage presence left everyone wanting more!! Sound at Hard Rock Café, New Delhi is never good, and testament to this fast was that when Rohan was singing ‘Vertigo’, the acoustics were relatively ok but problems arose with the twin guitar sound, proving to be a total killjoy.

This problem should be fixed ASAP; bands need good sound, period!

Overall, a memorable evening of music with Cyanide!

Shilpa Sharma

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Breathe – The Sound of Floyd, at UB City Bangalore

Pink Floyd. The legends. The stories. The visions and the colors. The imagery and form. The words and The void. The mellow warmth and the choral highs. The dystopian landscape and the virtuosic inflection. Pink Floyd.

Who among us has never felt or experienced the Floydian point of view especially down in the city of rock (or pubs), Bengaluru! In case you thought there was nothing more, Breathe – The Sound of Floyd, decided their gig in Bangalore last year was worth revisiting, and hence the Floyd Tribute concert at UB city on Saturday 26th February was proclaimed! Now, I personally have been listening to Floyd even before I knew to shave, and have been privileged enough to have watched a Roger Waters Concert in Mumbai. So forgive me for looking down my high horse atop a pedestal.

We arrived at the luxuriant UB City parking lot at 6:30 that Saturday evening, made our way up top to the amphitheater arena and squeezed into the Q – which by now resembled a S, and we whiled away some time trading heavy concert stories, or at least whatever we could… umm recall. The entry into the venue was flanked by Ducati stalls, which seemed to gather all the incoming attention and passed it on to the adjacent stall stocking KF beer. The arena was simply amazing, the amphitheater sinks from the restaurant level into one corner of the UB City building offering the audience a spectacular view of the city and offering a nice contrast to the glass facade of nearby sky-rises. The ubiquitous floating pig was keeping watch above us while the makeshift ‘eye’ trussed at the rear of the performing stage, fitted with four moving-head projectors trying their best to throw out psychedelic-ness. Because we were late, we could only manage bad outlying seats on the semi circular seating area, which I estimate could seat 1300. People kept pouring in, and the adventurous ones would tip toe around to look for precious squatting space (Really? You’re holding a spot for three friends with that cap?)

The show kicked off eventually with Wolfpack playing some popular tunes. I could only recognise U2 but I swear the other tracks were popular too! The frontman Rajeev was holding on to the by-now 1500 strong crowd. My suspicions of the FOH system were slowly coming true. Probably not the best choice of speaker cabinets for the venue, but the sunken level of the stage directed the small stack to within the first six or seven rows only; with speech intelligibility dropping exponentially thereon. Most of Rajeev’s quips and gags were lost on us and the harmonic richness of the music output was clearly absent if you were standing on any one of the higher rows or even worse, saw the crowd below and decided to stay up near the advertising stalls.

I decided to run up for a beer and right then the boys got on stage and threw everyone into a frenzy. Standard tracks like ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2′ were just the thing to warm up the crowd. The guys were super-talented and really, really tight on stage. Chris Barnes (vocals + guitar) displayed stellar singing, awesome chops on the occasional solo and was lively and chatty between songs. Peter Worley (bass + vocals) – No nonsense here, the man keeps the lines simple and the groove tight. Joel Anderson (keyboard) pulled off all the organ licks and spacey pads just like the late great Rick Wright. Andy Fenton (lead guitar+pedal steel) has put in his work in going for the Gilmour tone. Being the seasoned artiste he is, he most definitely has the feel and soul we all love in a good Floyd solo. Dave Gee (drums) – probably the most experienced in the band; had the style and the space; perfect flams and rolls – but was criminally made to play on a very poorly mic’ed drum kit.

After some initial buzz, they hit the ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ albeit minus ‘Great Gig in the Sky’, obviously due to the scat vocal necessity. Next , (in my opinion the highlight of the evening) was a track you would never ever have heard a band cover live. A song that Pink Floyd originally spent 6 months working on and tentatively titled ‘Return of the Son of Nothing’, a song that would be a forerunner to the great DSOTM album. A track called ‘Echoes‘. Complete with immaculate vocal harmony , the ethereal undertones and that psychedelic instrumental spot with whining-squealing-guitar-whammy- sounds-spaceytrippy-madness dealt out copiously. ‘Sheep’ from the Animals album was next followed by ‘Sorrow’. TheÂ eye in the rear was faithfully reproducing some classic PF imagery and visuals blending lasers and color, crescendoing into some fireworks for the grandiose ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond‘. The audience participation was absolute with the whole crowd joining in with the lyrics spot-on perfect. Tracks towards the fag end of the show ran through ‘Run run run’ and ‘Coming Back to Life’. The finale spots were reserved for the all important ‘Wish you were here’ and an encore with Rajeev for ‘Comfortably Numb’, with a thunderous guitar solo to drop curtains on the concert.

All in all, the show could have been managed a little better, with tighter security to keep jokers from running across the stage to grab a quick photograph with the guitarist after a terrific song. The sound was ill-suited to the venue and the desired sound effects typical of Pink Floyd music – so maybe a line array could have proved a better option. The lighting and lasers, did everything possible, but still ended up disappointing. Perhaps this was truly a tribute concert in these logistical aspects, but there’s no doubting or denying the fact that the band truly brought the heavens down on UB city and everyone who was there, experiencing a show that was worthy of the real thing.

Fidel Dsouza

Fidel Dsouza is a Journalist/Editor at WTS

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