Bliss under the Porcupine Tree

It was September'09 when the news about Porcupine Tree, the band from the UK, playing at the Mood Indigo Festival broke out. I was elated on hearing this and went straight to their official site for confirmation, what with all these rumours about bands like Dream Theater and Metallica coming to India doing the rounds. The day was 21st December 2009 and the venue, IIT Powai, Mumbai. This joy could have been momentary as the geeks from IIT had initially planned this to be exclusive to IITians and students. That was the only time I wished I was a student again. But thank goodness, for once they thought straight and decided to make it a public event, with tickets priced at Rs. 600 for college students and Rs. 1000 for non-college guys. If you thought the confusion ended there, you were wrong. True to their reputation of complicating things and thinking "out of the box" there was this fiasco of the confirmation slip. The registration process required the attendees to register online, pay through pay pal (no other mode was allowed in the initial few weeks and that left people frustrated) and wait for the confirmation slip to be emailed to them. I followed this procedure, booked my travel tickets but my inbox had no confirmation slip even after 12 days from the date of registration. After several emails and calls to the organizers, I was told to sort out this issue at the venue. Arrgghh! I had to take a chance and didn't want to miss my favourite band in action. So I set off alone on the 7 PM VRL Volvo bus with a full bladder and an empty stomach to experience the madness of Mumbai and to seek bliss under the Porcupine tree.

The Journey - Departure: 7 PM, 19/12/09 Arrival: 6 55 PM 20/12/09
The least you could have on an unusually long and a tiring 24 hr bus journey is some peace. But the VRL guys had other plans. I had to sit through a painful list of bollywood movies like lal badshah, garam masala and mission istanbul to name a few. They kept my neighbour entertained for sure (He hummed every freaking song that was played).When it comes to travel and me, I've never been lucky. The average age of my neighbours has always been 50 plus. Why god? Why? I've always prepared myself for a conversation with a hot chick as a potential travel mate, instead I get questions thrown at me like "You are studyingaa or werking?". I've always had PT, Opeth, Tool, Queensryche, Prasanna and the likes for company and they've never let me down. After some food for the ears and the soul, my stomach demanded some too. A couple of idlis the next morning at kolhapur and more idlis in a drive-in near Pune later that afternoon, we inched closer to amchi Mumbai. The only highlight of the journey was the Pune-Mumbai Expressway which was adorned by the illuminated tunnels a la Monte carlo, Monaco. I sensed chaos and knew we were somewhere close to the city. It took a good 2 hrs from Navi Mumbai to Andheri (W), the closest point to reach IIT Powai.

Andheri (W) 7 PM 20/12/09:
My first auto ride in Mumbai and I was in for a pleasant surprise. Friendlier auto guys (compared to Bengaluru) and the minimum charge was 10 Rs/km. The dissimilarities and extremes of lifestyle and infrastructure that Mumbai portrays is amazing. You have the grand Hyatt on one side and the slums symbolizing poverty on the other. My auto connection continued in Mumbai as well and I reached the SAC at IIT to collect my ticket booklet (remember I had no confirmation slip) only to find three seperate lines for the verification. I stood at the problem window (it was one literally) accompanied by Salman, the manager of Kryptos, the biggest metal band in Bangalore or probably India, to collect my booklet and after some explanation of this whole confirmation slip episode, I managed to get my ticket. Woohooo! My accommodation was set, thanks to my school mate and longtime friend from Coimbatore, who now stays in Thane on the outskirts of Mumbai. After a couple of rotis and a shot of monk, I retired to the bed looking forward to the big day.

21/12/09 - The Big day
The day I dreamt of, the day I wanted to experience, was finally there, sooner than I imagined it to be. My dream of watching the band that has been the most influential one since circa 2007 in terms of my music was only 5 hours away. Out came the Om black t-shirt and camouflage shorts (like a typical bangalorean concert goer) and I was all set for the concert. The taxi only cost me 120 Rs including the toll for a 17km drive. Again, a word of praise for the Mumbai transport system.
It was 1 PM and IIT Mumbai resembled the streets of North Goa; women with tattoos, some wearing ali babas and some others mini skirts, shorts and hot pants, teens with braided hair and hippies and wannabe hippies with dreadlocks. As I walked closer to the OAT, the venue of the concert, the guitar riffs of the song 'Open Car' emanated from the Open air theater. The band was checking their sound and I got to listen to samples of 'The blind house', 'Halo' and 'Time flies'. I was hoping for a press conference prior to the show but that was not the case, much to my disappointment. The way IIT Mumbai operates is quite different from Saarang, which was methodical and well executed. Going to a concert alone, especially the one you've waited for all your life can take the fun factor out of it. Fortunately, I made friends with a couple of die-hard fans of PT from Hyderabad and we ended up talking about PT's discography, the rock/metal scene in Bangalore and promoted my band as well (All that sales experience helped). We got a glimpse of Mr. Steven Wilson wearing a white tee with his flowing blond hair that would have given Jen An a complex. My day was done even before watching the concert. We got a fair idea of the setlist after the sound check and learned from reliable sources that it would comprise of songs from the albums 'The incident', 'Fear of a Blank Planet', 'Deadwing' and 'In Absentia'. We were the first to stand in the line that was formed 3 hrs before the gates were supposed to be opened, but my stomach had other plans. After a sandwich and a red bull from the Barista stall there, I caught up with Abhijeet Namboodaripad, guitarist of Cochin based band, Heretic and crew member of Motherjane, Salman and Rohit from Kryptos. The serpentine line had grown longer up to a mile and like typical Indians we cut the line to push our way up front. There was a seperate line for the ladies and I must say, Mumbai girls are the craziest I've seen in the country. I saw girls wearing clubbing attire and asking for cigarettes and joints from the guys. We made our way into the OAT and the capacity was much smaller compared to the one at IIT Chennai. The crowds started pouring in and the first band to take the stage was Something Relevant from Mumbai, one of the 3 finalists of the competition who played some real good bluesy and avant garde music, complete with alto saxophones and percussion instruments.
Up next was Rosemary, again from Mumbai which played its flavour of alternative/experimental rock with guitars heavily influenced by Tool, but the vocals didn't compliment the music at all. The third and final band before the official opening act, Parikrama was Noizeware. They only had time to play one song, were extremely noisy and the less said about them, the better. It's not everyday that you find Parikrama being booed off the stage with B*** Ch***s and MCs. Nitin Malik just couldn't handle the crowd well this time and they should really stop being ACDC impressionists. For a band that's stuck together for over 15 years, they showed signs of un-professionalism. The violin was not tuned, but as always he was the one who stole the show.
The lights went off and it was time to move the front row. I didn't want to risk being in the middle of the first row and I moved towards the PA system where the view was good enough to watch the band up close. I saw Steven Wilson and Colin Edwin appear in front of me and all I can remember was me screaming 'Steven'. They started the show with a bang playing 'Occam's Razor' and 'The Blind house' from their latest album, The incident. Unbelievably tight and the song sounded better live. When Steven greeted his fans by saying "Namaste India" the crowd went berserk. Those words still ring in my ears. Next up was one of my favourite PT Songs ' Sound of Muzak' from In Absentia. One word, Brilliant! When Colin Edwin started playing the bass lines of the 'Hate song' his smile was similar to that of The Buddha and looked divine. I then made myself comfortable behind the sound console, the best spot in the house for a good sound. 'Time flies' was both a visual and aural treat, as was their most commercial and popular song 'Blackest Eyes' (In Absentia). This was followed by some more popular songs like 'Open car', 'Lazarus' from the Deadwing album. The surprise song was 'The start of something Beautiful' and I was in a trance like many others during the course of this song. The drummer, Gavin Harrison displayed a lot variations in the song 'Open Car' and he was brilliant in the songs like 'Anesthetize' and 'Way out of here' from the Fear of a Blank Planet album. 'Way out of here' had its music video running in the background and the audio-video timing was precise. Steven's guitar riffs and vocals were particularly prominent in 'Anesthetize' a 17 minute song which is usually cut short in live shows. Another pleasant surprise was 'Russia on Ice' which I completely tripped on and not many people in the crowd knew that song. Two back to back songs from 'The incident' album, 'Octane twisted' and 'Circle of Manias' showed what Richard Barbieri can do with his magical fingers and his macbook connected to a midi player and Keyboards. Backing vocals in PT's songs are equally important and John Wesley was exceptional. The band went off stage for a bit like all other bands only to come back and play 'Trains' their most popular song in India and 'Halo' with the lyrics on the AV screen, one of the best songs of that evening. A 2 hour concert and 15 killer songs. Phew! They bid adieu to the 10,000 strong crowd and promised to be back in the country.
I was overcome and the whole experience was unreal and magical. I mirrored the thoughts of Nitin Malik of Parikrama, when he said "If there is something called out of this world, it is this". I was at a complete loss of words and all I did was hug friends from some Bangalore bands like Vibhas (Eccentric Pendulum), Abi (Ston'd and Escher's knot) and Madhav (Theorized). I bought the official PT tour t-shirt to take back those wonderful memories with me. All that chaos, the pain, the traffic and fatigue was worth it. I quote my earlier Facebook status message " I watched 5 gods live on stage and their names were Steven Wilson, Gavin Harrison, Colin Edwin, Richard Barbieri and John Wesley."

The next day (Day 3) I traveled 40 kms to have lunch at the famous 137 yr old Leopold cafe in the up market south mumbai area of Colaba. I bumped into a friend from Bangalore, Suchin Moses who is a big fan of PT as well and it was he who indirectly introduced me to their music 3 and a half years ago. There was nothing special about Leopold other than its century old existence and the bullet marks on its windows after the 26/11 attacks. The waiters were unfriendly and the menu was extremely over priced (A musambi juice for 90 bucks?). Then the routine visits to the gateway, The Taj mahal hotel which inspired me to write a song 1 yr ago and a stroll on Marine drive with Suchin and his friends. I got a taste of the Mumbai traffic that evening and I was forced to take the Worli-Bandra Sea link which I didn't mind. The sea link was beautiful to look at and the drive was even better.

23/12/09: It was time to head back home on a delayed spicejet flight. The Mumbai trip was one that I would cherish for the rest of my life. After all that IIT bashing, hats off to them for getting 2 amazing bands this year, Opeth and Porcupine Tree to India.