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A celebration of music
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Unwind Center’s first Unplugged Festival took the audience back in time with yesteryear hits
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PHOTO: M. KARUNAKARAN
PERFECT HARMONY One of the groups at the show
No gimmicks, no gizmos, no grandstanding. The first Unplugged Festival by the Unwind Center was a throwback to an earlier time, just a celebration of music, pure and simple — musicians strumming their acoustic guitars, voices coming together in harmony, and melody reigning supreme.
Madrigals Etc., the choir from Bangalore that specialises in Renaissance music, was the special guest of the evening. Led by Neecia Majolly, they took the audience back in time with their polished performances of Italian Madrigals and charming duets such as ‘Though Philomela lost her love” and “My dearest, my fairest”. Chimera, a group of all-female voices from Ethiraj College, did well with the energetic ‘Punk Rocker’ and ‘Joy to the World’, but their attempts at a cappella left something to be desired.
Great performances
The evening truly belonged to local bands who turned in terrific performances, playing a mixture of old favourites and original compositions. The Unplugged Jedis were a revelation with their soulful renditions of John Lennon’s ‘A Working Class Hero’ and Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’. Crowd favourites Sudhin, Jim and Timmy were a class apart with their performances of Boston’s ‘Amanda’ and ‘Hold on’ by Kansas (to stirring strains of the violin by Clement Vedanayagam). They were joined by Freddie Koikaran, Saroop Oommen and flautist Nina Moran from the U.S. for a wonderful impromptu performance of the classic ‘Dust in the wind’. And the high-energy ex-Madras Christian College band On Vibrator Mode may have been the last band on stage, but they really got the crowd going with their goofy Malayalam ‘translation’ of their original composition ‘Cindy’.
The show also saw gospel rocker John Vidyasagar return to the stage after a long absence. Though self-professedly rusty, the singer was clearly popular with the audience, drawing huge cheers for his gutsy performance of Aerosmith’s ‘Amazing.’
Some smooth interludes came, courtesy Nina, who performed with Saroop (a dreamy, lilting Latin jazz number titled ‘Black Orpheus’) and choral conductor and pianist Chris George from the U.K. The audience also got to be part of the act with the long-awaited Sing-Along segment of the evening — as Saroop strummed on his guitar and Freddie put up the lyrics on the screen, the crowd sang enthusiastically along to the tune of oldie-goldies such as ‘Country Roads’, ‘Blowing in the Wind’, really going all out for Bryan Adam’s classic ‘Summer of ‘69’. Unfortunately, the long line-up of acts meant this segment was kept short, but the audience was placated with a promise of more at future shows.
All in all, the festival had sufficient variety in style and more than enough talent to keep audience members around for more than three hours. One certainly hopes to see more of the Unplugged Festival in Chennai in the years to come.
DIVYA KUMAR
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
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