Something To Remember - Open Day '11

| Posted in , , , , , , , , | Posted on 11:58 PM


The ladies. And me. And my guitar.

  Howdy, people? Last week was crazy. This week's been too, so far.
  Last Saturday, on 23rd July, our school had its Open Day. Young kids' projects and charts, among a multitude of other things, were showcased. The students' parents came and saw what their kids had been doing, and... Hey, wait. That's just random shit. The musicians of the school got to play openly too, and that's what concerned me the most.
  We played and we played - and we played till we weren't allowed to anymore, because Open Day '11 was over. That was the worst part. It got over. If we weren't bound by time restrictions, we could've easily continued for an hour or two - even after playing for over an hour. 
  Up there in the picture, there's Nilanjana, Remya and me. These ladies, along with Gautami (who's also a chick) sang the vocals for Sweet Child O' Mine (because hey! Who the hell can sing like Axl?) and the literally harmonized the crap out of that song. It's so great having these chicks try so much for something the musicians can't really do much about - the vocals. They're awesome, they're awesome. And so was their rendition of Sweet Child O' Mine.
  The rest of the band's great too. There's this really sweet synergy between me and the bassist (Gandharva), and him and the drummer (Ehtesham/Ronit). Heck, the whole band is synergistic. Anish plays rhythm guitar, I play lead, and Atish plays keyboards (yes, plural. He's often playing two at a time); he also does the vocals for the chorus of Comfortably Numb, as does Gandharva, and I do the verse vocals (and yeah, Gandharva helps me there too, I'm not much of a singer).
  Nilanjana took a few of the pictures (except the ones she's in; I don't know who took those), and Remya clicked a bunch of photos too
 {For photo credits: [N] - Nilanjana; [R] - Remya}. 
 So yeah, we begun with Sweet Child O' Mine:

'Whoooaaa!!!' I can't sing that without my voice cracking. These chicks can. 

There's something just so bloody beautiful about singing with closed eyes.
  And then the little kiddos took over the stage and played medleys and everything with an orchestra and whatnot, so we head over to the foyer and practiced songs on our acoustic guitars.

We played, 'Wish You Were Here'
 [N]

And Remya sung with us...
 [N]

...As the whole band listened in
  And our guitars were perpendicular to each other...

Perpendicular.
[N]
 And then we took the stage for another set of songs, another set of melodies and emotions. Remya sung a few solo songs (Everything I Do, Wish You Were Here) and then we played a few songs too - some we were adept at, others improvised. We played Hotel California (I improvised a bit of the solo, I hadn't practiced it in eons), Slither, Enter Sandman, a few hindi songs - Socha Hai, Tum Ho Toh. There were also so many songs we couldn't play because of lack of time: The Trooper, Knocking On Heaven's Door, Volcano, Yellow... but that's okay; we made as much as we could of the time given to us.
 We were joined by Varidh and Utkarsh in Hotel California and Slither, and the latter sung I Have A Dream too, with an accompanying keyboardist.
 We had some radical amount of fun that day, an indecent amount of it in a certainly decent exposure. Even as we ended with our last song Comfortably Numb - yes, it was requested to be played again, just like Sweet Child O' Mine - we just knew we wouldn't possibly have anything of the sort ever in our life again. I could go on about how great it felt - how mind-numbing the songs felt, how great the solo was - but I wouldn't. Some things are better left unsaid. And what words don't express, pictures do. So this one's going to be me sharing what's imprinted on my mind - in a way you can see it too.


Playing Sweet Child O' Mine. Look at me having convulsions. So cool.
  
Ending Sweet Child O' Mine... 
[N]
Playing Hotel California... (singer: Varidh)
[N]
Gandharva and me doing the vocals for Comfortably Numb...
[R]
The Comfortably Numb guitar solo...
[R]

  And hey - it's not like we spent all our time playing (no, not that any of us would've had any issues against doing so) - and so here's a bunch of pictures where we're just acting how we usually act: random.


Nil. Rem.
Anish. Rem. Zoya(Uninformed Groupie).
[N]
Ehtesham. Nilanjana. Unidentified Paunch.
Atish. Ehtesham. Remya.
[N]
Flabbergasted Anish. Scrutinizing Rem.
[N]
Ehtesham.
[N]
Atish. Gandharva. Me.
[N]
Nil. Anish. Rem. (All Horny)
Zoya. (Not Horny)
Little Kid with Anish's Guitar. Ehtesham.
[N]
Anish (hiding, for some reason). Remya.
[N]
Nilanjana.
[R]
Rem. Me.
[N]
  That pretty much covers the whole of Open Day '11, unless you were there, of course; in which case it doesn't do so much as give a peek of what had actually happened. It is often said that we don't remember days, just moments, and so this is what it has been so far - moments. Just moments. Because that's all a picture can capture - a moment; the memory remains ours forever to relive.

X-x-X

SPECIAL EXTENDED FEATURETTE:
MEET THE BAND!
(And the featured vocalists!)

(!) Ehtesham Shareef (Drummer/Keyboardist - Sweet Child O' Mine)

[N]
[R]

(!!) Atish Majumdar (Keyboardist/Vocalist)

His hand. His keys.
[R]
[R]
(!!!) Anish Majumdar (Rhythm Guitarist)

[N]
Yeah... he's kind of like that...
[N]
(!V) Gandharva Sati (Bassist/Backing Vocalist)

[N]
[R]
(V) Ronit Roy (Drummer - Sweet Child O' Mine)

[N]
He tries not to look like this.
[N]

(V!) Srimanta Mitra (Lead Guitarist/Backing Vocals - Comfortably Numb)

[R]
[N]
Featured Vocalists!


(!) Remya Raj

[N]
(!!) Nilanjana Bhattacharjee

[R]
(!!!) Gautami Reddy

She's probably taller than both Nilanjana and Remya put together.
(!V) Utkarsh Srivastava

[R]
(V) Vidya Varidh

[R]

  That's just about it fellas! Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures (and reading what is written, if you cared enough). And. Hope you like music - no matter what type, style, genre - and that somewhere, somehow, we're able to affect you with what we have to contribute. Here's me signing off again. 
  And oh, I'd like to end with this one picture Nilanjana took of me, because we're all as much retards as we are human - and it's just more apparent on some people than on others. And also because Nilanjana is a freaking great photographer.
  Here:

Thanks, sis.

 Adios, folks.
X-x-X

Comments (1)

nil Said on August 1, 2011 at 3:40 PM

Mantaaaaaaaaaaah! Haha this was Awesome! I wanted to write a post on Open Day too man, just never got around to it... Procrastination at its best :/

But man,this was great! Thanks yo, wanted to have a printed memory too. And hell I agree with the 'moments' part. I have a zillion coupla them from that day :)

-cheers liltttul bro,
love :-)

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