JOIN USBengaluru band takes Carnatic rock to USA
The first thing that strikes you is the camaraderie. Members of Carnatic progressive rock band Agam, which has been around for nine years now, are classmates, friends, bandmates, colleagues, family — the list goes on. From completing each other’s sentences to predicting who will be late for the interview, they have each other’s backs.
Fresh from a tour of the US, whether they played to four almost sold-out venues in Dallas, Seattle, San Jose and Chicago, lead vocalist Harish Sivaramakrishnan, lead guitarist Praveen Kumar and lyricist and keyboardist Swamy Seetharaman spoke to Metrolife about their experience.
How did the tour happen?
Praveen- We have been planning to go to the US for almost 4-5 years now. Many organisers contacted us but for some reason or the other, it didn’t materialise. Finally, Global Media Productions reached out to us in June last year and we have in talks since then.
Where did you perform?
Praveen- We played in four cities for the first leg — Dallas, Seattle, San Jose and Chicago — over two weekends. We had a combined footfall of about 3,500. In their respective capacities, the auditoriums were mostly full house.
What was the audience like?
Swamy- Agam gigs usually see people from 8-80 years in the audience. It was a similar demographic there from an age perspective, mostly South Indians.
Praveen- It was quite surprising to see that there were many people who knew our songs. Most of the audience sang along to Boat Song and Koothu Over Coffee.
The 1,300 strong crowd in San Jose even sang to Rangapura Vihara. It almost felt like we were performing in India.
Did you tweak any songs to suit the US audience?
Harish- No. I sang ghazals, covers and our songs. At varying degrees, people understood or didn’t, which is the same thing that we see here.
Swamy- We saw the audience there still had a passion for music and want to stay connected to their roots.
Any negative feedback?
Swamy- Hardly anything, mostly people loved our performance. Some people noticed minute differences in what we played and went to the extent of writing it down on Google review forms. When we asked people whether they would come for a repeat performance, almost 95 per cent of them said yes on the form.
Harish- Did someone explicitly say they won’t come back?
Swamy- Very few.
Harish- Good to know who they are. (All three burst out laughing)
So what was the best part of the tour?
Swamy- Praveen improved his driving skills and Harish became the best navigator in town.
Praveen- We got to spend a lot of time together, which we usually don’t since all of us are working. We drove around a lot and got to spend time as friends, rather than bandmates. If we don’t make music, we will still continue to be friends.
Harish- But we will still continue to play music...(laughs)
Were there any challenges?
Praveen- The visas were the biggest challenge. Till the last minute, we weren’t even sure if all of us will land in the US. So we didn’t do much promotion either. We are going to rectify all this in the second leg.
There is a second leg of the tour?
Swamy - Yes, hopefully in December 2020 where we will cover more cities. For example, the organisers had to shift some venues to accommodate more people. Still the tickets were sold out very quickly. Next time, we will plan in advance, sort out visas earlier and so on.
Future projects?
Praveen - There is a possible collab coming up later this year. We had also written some new material for Ranjani Gayatri show. In another six months, we will get these new songs right and then start playing them.
In flashback mode
A common song request they received across venues was ‘Aaromale’, Agam’s take on the A R Rahman’s hit composition from the movie ‘Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa’.
“We generally don’t play it in our shows. However, everyone asked for it in all the shows and we had to scramble to remember our respective parts.”
Another surprise for the fans was when Ganesh Ram Nagarajan and Vignesh Lakshminarayanan, the former drummer and bass guitarist of the band, joined the members onstage. “They are both settled in Seattle now. They played Malhar Jam and Aaromale with us on stage in Seattle and San Jose,” says Swamy.
“One of the reasons the show went on for two hours and fifteen minutes in Seattle; we usually end the show in 90 minutes. We didn’t realise we were playing for so long because we were having such a good time on stage,” adds Praveen.
Snippets from the gigs
Many people who drove for more than 15 hours to come to the concerts. Among the many fans they met was a nine-year-old girl, who showed them a picture she had taken with them, at a concert in Hyderabad, when she was two years old. Then there was a saxophone player, also doing his Masters in Medicine, who wanted to join them.