Stoned On A Sunday!

May 7th, 2006.... The day we had all been waiting for.. Our first attempt at Sunday Jam! Didn't exactly go the way we expected, but it was an awesome experience for me atleast. Being a new band, we were either offered a slot right at the beginning, the middle or as the last band on stage. And the way my luck goes, we got the latter slot! DAMN! BLACKOUT to play when it's all dark! WOW!

The featured band of the day was Prasanna and the Electric Ganesha Band....long name, huh? They stuck to the stage the longest too! Prasanna was amazing. I remember sitting close to the stage and watching him come up with amazing solos! But after a while it got too much.... we were getting really impatient for our turn to come. So Putta (Rahul- Lead) and Abhijith (Twin Lead) decided to practice till our turn came... this actually caught the eye of the Rave journalists too! We were even asked for an interview before we even played! They were talking to the wrong band, I guess...but it was awesome. The interview never happened though! LOL!

So it turned out that we were to set foot on the stage at 12:00 AM! Not kidding, the schedule went way overboard...and we were given 10 minutes to jam on stage... What followed was utter chaos! Amit's keyboard didn't function, Putta's guitar strap snapped and we had no time to do a soundcheck! Being the last band on stage, the sound guys neglected us too! It was now or never!

Putta sat down like he was playing a sitar, while Amit tried to figure out what was wrong with his keyboard... But we had only ten minutes, so Abhi played the intro of Slither (Velvet Revolver) immediately and we were off! There were just five rows of people left in the crowd by now and I told myself 'Let's see if I can pull this crowd atleast' and went loud on the mic... I still remember seeing the stunned faces of my bro and sis in the crowd! Hell, even Amit was surprised, shocked I must say... here was I, a guy who talks least among everyone in the band and suddenly I was shouting my a** off! I couldn't believe it too!

We played a fast version of Slither with Shreyas (Drums) going hard on the Pearl kit! Putta played the Slash lead when still on his knees! I was over the moon! After the song we were told to finish really fast and so we played an own composition, The Fire Still Burns.... which was not a complete song as of then...still isn't! Putta and Abhi went hard on their guitars, while I was left headbanging with nothing else to do... we didn't even have lyrics for the song...LOL! I remember someone among the crowd shouting "Where's the fire da?" and I replied "Here baby, Yeah!!"... growling out loud! We finished the song with a trademark Putta solo....and the song got over with me shooting myself in the head (not with Gun macha, hand only!)

As we got off stage, each of us were high on the performance! Anybody got booze? I could barely speak after shouting so much! My cousin Nakul came by and asked me "Where did all that energy come from!" Man, did I stun everyone who came there that day! Sorry guys!

Shreyas was totally high! He kept saying "Da macha, Heavy Metal anthe! Is it a Moozic?!" He was obviously in the "WE RULE!" mood!

We then decided to call it a day after going to Mascot! Ah, holy food! Thanx to Ramya (Putta's sis) for the idea and for the free band van (tour van, I must say)! After having tasted the heavenly food, we went back to our Adda, Putta's house for a sleepover. We had some fun leaving Amit locked inside the car too, not for the whole night though!

Woke up in the morning thinking to myself 'It wasn't a dream right?!'

An amazing experience I must say! The order of the day at Sunday Jam was Heavy Metal but we stuck to Hard Rock as we wanted to be different... Just hope we didn't disappoint the crowd...

CHEERS!