Divya Naik spent time at the nale of the Revival of the Bandstand Culture in Mumbai recently and loved every minute
After acts spanning almost eight weeks, the extravaganza that was the Revival of the Bandstand Culture came to an end on 23 May on a lovely note at the Y B Chavan Auditorium, Mumbai. The initiative was taken up by the Bombay Chamber of Industry and Commerce and sponsored by the Maharashtra Tourism and Development Corporation, and other corporates.
Spanning Saturdays from March 12 to May 23, the audience witnessed acts of various genres ranging from bands Pradakshinam, Bombay Bassment, Dischordian, Rang, Something Relevant, Airport, Split, Snowdown Clown, Shor Bazaar, Colour Compound, Pulp Society, and the MCGM, the police and navy bands to artistes like Ankit Dayal, Vasuda Sharma, Ankur Tewari and the Ghalat Family. The performances were held at bandstands across the city – Hanging Gardens, Dadar Chowpatty (Sant Dyaneshwar Udyan) and the Carter Road Amphitheatre in Bandra.
The project has been an annual event for the past three years and has delighted thousands of young Mumbaikars with live music in a bandstand during 26 weekends in 2007- 08 and during 17 weekends in 2010. Also, this year, the bandstand at Dadar Chowpatty had been opened to the public with a live performance for the first time with the permission of the municipal corporation.
Says Priyanka, a college student, “The best part of the whole endeavor has been that all the performances were for free and open to public. Also, I got to meet and listen to a lot of new bands and artistes and I got a lot of exposure to many new genres of music.”
The finale saw some memorable performances by the band Junckt and the soloist Imli Imchen. Imli played three of his own wonderful compositions in his own style called New Age Fingerstyle on an acoustic guitar and is inspired by Andy McKee, Don Ross, and Preston Reed. Another wonderful act was one by the band Junckt which played some jazz tracks. They apparently vary from a six-piece to a nine-piece outfit and the musicians playing in every concert change as well. The lineup consists of Hitesh on the guitar, Rajeev on the flute, Paul on the trumpet, Nakul playing the saxophone, Adi on the bass, Neerav on the drums and Umang playing the congas. Their genre basically being jazz, they did get the audience in thrall with a fine performance by their flautist. The concert also saw some Bollywood fare by the Bombay Rockers Project of Mihir Joshi, who has been an RJ with Radio One. They rocked the night with numbers like Intehaan Ho Gayi Intezaar Ki and some other old songs such as Main Hoon Don. However, the act that really took the cake was the wonderfully orchestrated music of the Indian Navy Band. They started off by playing the signature tune of James Bong and then progressed to Bollywood numbers like Hawa Mein Udta Jaaye and wound up with the national anthem. The encores that they got were incomparable and numerous, not surprisingly.
All the bands which played at the Revival were felicitated with certificates of honour by the authorities with a vote of thanks to the municipal corporation of Mumbai and the Mumbai Police for their co-operation.
