Alliance Francaise introduced Yapa, a music group from France, to the audiences of Bangalore who were mesmerised by their music.
Yapa is a four member band consisting of Christophe Combel, Fabrice Bourgignal and Simon Chenel, a trio of guitarists along with Xavier Hamon, the percussionist.
The group was seen on stage wearing flamboyant blue and pink shiny shirts and immediately won hearts with their smiling faces and enchanting music.
Simon Chenel, the only one considerably fluent in English was quite the darling of the crowd and began the concert with a polite namaste.
Their energy on stage was infectious and such that it would leave even the fiercest critic smiling.
The stage in Alliance was perfect for their music and transcended the listener to a happy place.
Their first song called Xproject established the purpose of their music — to enthrall
audiences with electrifying original tunes.
It began rather slowly and they used instruments like a shaker, which added a different flavour altogether to the song.
Vecella, a song dedicated to a small village in France near Burgundy, had a sleepy,
pensive mood to it.
It also had semblances to classical music and had a quality where the listener had the tendency to drift away into a world created by the musicians.
Taking the audiences to a small village in Africa called Saba in Burkina Faso was the song Story Of Endoo.
This song was written in collaboration with an African story-teller KPG. After an African treat, a melancholic song followed.
Laguna Verde had sadness etched in every note. Written next to a green sulphur lake near an old volcano in Croatia, the song left heavy visuals in the minds of the listeners and literally took their breath away.
They ended the concert with a percussion solo by Xavier, who with his dreadlocks, created a Tandav with his drums that left the audiences spellbound.
Their last song for the evening was Maya written in the loving memory of a child. By the end of the concert, the audience was up on their feet dancing to the tunes, clapping joyously to the beautiful numbers.
Yapa were off to Mysore after their performance in the City and will be spending a week in Mumbai, where they intend to collaborate with Indian musicians and churn out original tunes, specific to India.