A favourite through the years

Loyal Fans

They’ve been around for 22 years and it’s evident that over time, Bangaloreans have only grown fonder of their music. Parikrama, one of India’s veteran classic rock bands, performed at Hard Rock Café recently to a sizable and appreciative crowd.

The second leg of their five-city ‘Parikrama @ 22’ tour, they left no stone unturned as they played all their popular songs as well as covers like ‘Kashmir’ by ‘Led Zeppelin’ and ‘Baba O’Riley’ by ‘The Who’. The anticipated originals like ‘Whiskey Blues’, ‘Sweet As Sugar’, ‘Vapourize’, ‘How Do We Decide It’ and of course, ‘But It Rained’ were performed energetically, alongside lesser known gems like ‘Tears of the Wizard’, which was interestingly dedicated to Gandalf of the ‘Lord of the Rings’trilogy.

‘Xerox’, the band’s first original composition written back in 1991, was also on the cards, standing testimony to the band’s existence and evolution through all these years.
 ‘Open Skies’, an instrumental composition, received an excellent response, possibly owing to the violin solos by Imran Khan.

Visibly impressed by the eight musicians on the tiny stage, the audience made their appreciation felt by singing along during the choruses and cheering them on throughout. “It’s an honour to see an Indian band exist for 22 years. It gives hopes to all the other bands to stick around and do what they love,” shares Varun Murali, lead guitarist for local folk rock band ‘Swarathma’.

Chetan VK, another audience member, adds, “It was mind-blowing. I love the way they merge Indian instruments with classic rock. I’ve seen them perform in Mysore earlier but tonight was really special. I was thoroughly impressed with the drummer and the guitarists.”

The band was just as content with the response they got. “It was very nice to play in Bangalore again. As a band, we’ve performed to crowds of 500 and 50,000 in the past and each time, it’s a completely different kind of crowd. There’s no way to compare one show with the other. Tonight’s crowd was the slightly older lot but that probably explains why they knew most of the songs,” says Subir Malik, who plays the keyboard for the band.