On my last day in Ban­ga­lore (Decem­ber 12th), I attended a fusion music show that was a part of the Ban­ga­lore Habba (a fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate the city), held at the very impres­sive Palace Grounds. I am espe­cially fond of live fusion music and this one fea­tured Tau­fiq Qureshi (a bril­liant per­cus­sion­ist), Niladri Kumar (an absolutely amaz­ing sitarist), Parthasarthy (mri­dan­gam), Karl Peters (bass gui­tar) and Louis Banks (keyboards).

Against the back­drop of the tudor style build­ing in the mid­dle of the grounds, the stage was all lit-up for the occa­sion. The per­for­mance started with a few songs and then a recital by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. We were dou­bly thrilled when he ended with a Ben­gali song and a Bihu folk tune.

There were about three power trips (Ban­ga­lore liv­ing up to its rep­u­ta­tion!) dur­ing the show. Thank­fully, it was fixed and though the per­for­mance started late, we were in for a real treat. I’ve watched Zakir Hus­sain, but this was my first time watch­ing his brother Qureshi. And I must say he was amaz­ing — the sounds he pro­duced (and with­out any instru­ments) left the audi­ence speech­less. Niladri Kumar was an absolute treat (do watch him live if you get the chance). And some elec­tri­fy­ing music they cre­ated together. The thing about live fusion music is the spon­ta­neous jam­ming and the camaderie that these musi­cians share. And when trans­lated into notes and melodies, it is sheer joy to watch and listen.

And to think we nearly missed the show. Despite being Ban­ga­lore­ans, both Pallavi and her hus­band Rocky were bliss­fully unaware of the fes­ti­val. So I had to lit­er­ally holler and shout and until they took me seri­ously. Pallavi man­aged to wran­gle three passes (bless her resource­ful­ness). We dropped our other plans hap­pily. And with no regrets!

Ini­tially, we were at the very back of the open air seat­ing arrange­ment. Being rather short, both Pallavi and I had a really hard time see­ing any­thing on the stage. Later, thanks to the inge­nu­ity of a cou­ple of other guys who were with us, we man­aged to get into the VIP sec­tion. And by the time, Qureshi and his team were on stage, we were in the front row. It couldn’t get more up close and personal!

By the time we left it was about 1.00 am and a Sufi music ses­sion was still going on. But I had a flight to catch the same morn­ing so we decided to make our way home.

There ended my Ban­ga­lore trip, and on a rather high note!

(Pallavi went on to watch and enjoy more shows on Decem­ber 13th and 14th!)