After bugging Chetan repeatedly, he finally confirmed the location of Live 1o1 at the Unwind Center every Friday. It turned out to be at 3rd Cross Street in Gandhi Nagar, a location we knew well and was close to Chetan’s house. How the heck did I miss the large Unwind Center board on that road? It must have been installed only recently.
So our crazy journey all over North Chennai to reach Nelson Manickam Road at Nungambakkam to try to find Unwind Center was in vain. (We did find the place, except that they had abandoned it months earlier. D’oh!) Our route was so haphazard that we ended up travelling 42 kilometres by the time we reached Besant Nagar, tired and grimy with aching backs, for dinner at Subway/Prime Roaster.
So anyway, we went to the place at 7:30 PM. Chetan wanted a lift from his house to there even thought it was hardly 200 metres away. People were hanging about waiting for the show to start. We went to the first floor and bought a ticket each for Rs. 100, which was a piece of tear-resistant paper around our wrists like the ones in theme parks. I ran into Sid Hande (junior at SMA, tennis player) at the entrance, who said he was going to be singing and I promptly declared that I wanted my money back.
The inside was a medium sized L shaped hall with a small performance area with the drums behind a transparent sheet (to reduce the intensity of sound cause the place was small) at the joint of the L. There were lots of cool looking speakers all around the stage. There were some wooden stair-like structures to sit on in the smaller arm of the L. This is where Chetan and I found places to sit. On the longer arm of the L was some more standing space, a few chairs and then the sound equipment behind that.
First up was a hip-hop act. I’ve forgotten their names. But they were really really good. The one song I recognised was Eminem & Dr. Dre - Forgot About Dre and there was another Tupac song which sounded excellent.
Then came Sid Hande and his gang who called themselves Skrat. Sid was surprisingly good at the vocals. The drums in the closed environment drowned out all other sounds which kindof sucked. They played Creed - What If really well. Sid’s vocals were brilliant, a complete change from the soft voice he used in a previous song. His mom was there too, and some of his classmates (my juniors) from SMA.
There were some Americans from California who played next. Their own composition Set Me On Fire was decent but nothing new. Their drummer looked awesome with his tattoos and bulging muscles.
The last was Nerverek and Chetan said he’d heard them earlier. They played loud and heavy and I can’t really say how good their were cause it was way too loud. My ears still hurt. Not the band’s fault. Their guitarists were brilliant, coaxing all sorts of improbable sounds from the guitar. They got the crowd going with some covers and some own compositions.
My only gripe with the place is that the drums get too loud. My ears still hurt! Next time I’m wearing ear plugs. It’ll cut out all the noise and I can hear only the music, the way it’s supposed to be. A pity we don’t have more gigs like this or places that encourage music in Chennai. Kudos to the Unwind Center trust for encouraging bands and artists this way.
Chetan says his friends’ band Wreckage Avenue is playing next week. Let’s see how it goes. Till then, rock on!
(I’m not linking to the Unwind Center website since it is outdated.)
July 22nd, 2006 |
He is your friend!!
