My First Rock Concert!

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Mumbai provided me my first experience at a concert (of any sort) outside IIT. Low excitement level for it was making me feeling slightly guilty... afterall a rock concert is about enthu and all, specially when it is your first and two of the best Indian rock bands are performing in it. As we hurried to the Azad Maidan anticipating a huge crowd and space constraints, we were forced to squint our eyes to find the concert arena in Azad Maidan. Not that Azad Maidan is thaaaaat big, instead the concert was that small and very strategically placed in a khopcha.

Afraid that we might find it tough to get inside, gauging from the loooong queues for Livewire every year, Purushottam and I scurried to the front entrance only to find a meagre crowd (if one could call that a crowd) of 20 people. The height was when while letting us in an organizer was heard yelling - "aaraam se jao.. sabko aage baithne kii jageh milegi." (WTF!!!)

Zero kicked start the evening with their originals and pretty much kept to their own songs with a few deviants, but I (and Shaggy) found their act rather disappointing. All expectations of a rocking evening rested with Parikrama and their first song (Highway to Hell, AC-DC) was anything but a teaser of what was in store for the next 80 minutes, which climaxed with their original acoustic song Open Skies and the ever rocking Smoke On the Water.

A decent bit of head banging, swaying and occasional plunges in the mosh-hole is what a rock show is about. Thankfully, despite the dismal crowd and dim ambience we were offered all these elements - for free! :)