Video: Raghu Dixit calls on the audience to come out and dance in Mysooru bhaashe
at Sunnyvale Temple auditorium on March 5 2011
When I read Raghu Dixit's words that his concert will be such that everybody will start dancing I had thought that I could agree with it only after being in the concert myself. It is not that I am not familiar with Raghu Dixit's music. I have heard his songs before and like them for their distinct style but had not imagined how it would be to hear the band live.
But the band Raghu Dixit Project (known as RDX in cool circles) played at the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple auditorium on Saturday, March 5th 2011 and lived up to its promise totally. This concert was organized by Kasturi Media (http://www.kasturimedia.com/) in collaboration with Kannada Koota of Northern California.(http://kknc.org/) It was a sell out crowd with an estimated audience of five hundred to six hundred.
When I showed up with my family at 5.45 PM the doors were closed and there was an excited crowd of one hundred or more in the lobby of the auditorium. What struck me was that a large section of the crowd was very young in its twenties and they were all speaking Kannada. They were all excited about this rock concert and their excitement was as much reflected in their dresses as in their conversations. It was good to see this section of the Bay area Kannada community which we do not see in the regular Kannada Koota functions.
As the entrance doors remained closed beyond the stated start time, the crowd in the lobby got bigger and the voices of the organizers got hoarser as they bravely tried to explain the cause for the delay in opening the doors. At one point Raghu Dixit himself opened the door, explained the delay which was due to their flight arriving late and requested every one's patience. Finally at around 6.45 they let us in only to be seated not in the auditorium but in a half way room. It might well have been the transit lounge in the Singapore Airlines' section of Taipei airport.
Finally the doors between the 'Transit lounge' and the auditorium opened and people ran in to grab their quota of six or so seats in a row. (May be four for their own family and two for their friends - the newly-married-no-kids-yet couple). Some people were mildly disappointed when they were out paced by colorful duppattas which flew past them and deftly landed on the right number of chairs. The owners of the duppattas could be heard patting the duppattas and saying "oh I am so proud of you". Still it appeared that the duppattas were later complaining amongst themselves that Raghu Dixit did not serenade them with "hava mein uduta jaaye, mora laal duppatta mal mal ka".
In spite of feeling irritated that I got crappy seats with poles obstructing my view and forcing me to tilt my head, I was really pleased with the way they had arranged the chairs. It was done with audience participation in mind.
Then the band 'The Raghu Dixit Project' walked on to stage and got a rousing welcome. They appeared totally cool in colorful shirts, 'panches' (the un-stitched cloth, wrapped around the waist) and anklets. The majority of the crowd showed how much they were fans of Raghu Dixit by enthusiastically cheering and clapping. RDX implored the audience to just get up from their seats and come up front and be ready to dance. I went up immediately if only to watch over my daughters and was among the jostling crowd right in front of the stage.
True to their promise, RDX had their audience singing and dancing to their tunes. They sang both in Kannada and Hindi. The music was very catchy and attractive especially because it combined exotic Indian and Kannada folk music and lyrics with the powerful rhythms and sounds of rock music. It was an amazing experience to watch the band perform as one entity. Raghu Dixit interacted with the crowd in a very friendly and personal manner. The audience cheered and responded with excitement when RDX mentioned his own neighborhood Jayanagar and talked in Kannada with typical local accent. I stood right in front below the stage for most of the concert. The crowd there included little children, teenagers, young adults and pre-middle aged men and women. Almost everybody shed their inhibitions and danced. The excitement was building up and I was watching around to see if anyone would up the stage and dive into the audience. Obviously it did not happen. (The safe mosh pit at the Sunnyvale Temple)
I was hesitant in the beginning but then, before I knew I had lost myself in the music and was totally immersed in this hugely entertaining rock concert. The band rendered their hits such as 'Hey Bhagwan', 'Mysore Se Aayi', 'Gudugudiya', 'Khidki', 'No man will ever love you, like I do', 'lokada kaalaji', 'just maath maathalli' and the audience favorite 'ninna poojege bande mahadeswara'.
Video: Mysore se aayi
The audience soaked up the excitement the band offered. They enjoyed and cheered everything the band did including when RDX scolded the audience a couple of times for talking amongst themselves or for not participating in the concert enthusiastically.
I felt proud watching these superbly talented musicians perform. They are from my home state of Karnataka and they spoke my language Kannada. They looked hip and they knew how to rock the audience. Best of all, they demonstrated that they are equally talented in and capable of performing both contemporary popular genre like Rock music as well as traditional Indian folk music. Now that was cool.
The band is comprised of Raghu Dixit, Gaurav Vaz, Vijay Joseph, Karthik Iyer and Wilfred Demoz.
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