Tour Diary

The Blackbirds Diary
(For Comments, Write to Dhruv: yoursdhruly@hotmail.com)

Friday, 02 January 2004
A whole year gone by. Almost. The Blackbirds DID play 7 shows in June 2002, but the real story only started with their first gig of the year at Life Bistro on the 24th of January. To date, the band has played an impressive 103 gigs. Most of them with Dhruv and Vinit holding fort, but nonetheless.

The high point of the year has to have been making the finals at Mood Indigo and playing to a HUGE crowd, 8000 odd maybe? Definitely more than 5000. On a less eventful but as important level, the band has met an incredible number of people and made friends with many of them. The Blackbirds have had the privilege of playing shows with musicians of the calibre of Roger Dragonnette, Valentino and Jayant and have also been joined on several an occasion by friends including Jaideep Gokhale and Pierre Fitter.

The Blackbirds have gone through the usual band member instabilities. While Dhruv and Vinit have always played together, members have come and gone at the other end. The band started off with Nishant on drums and Bhupal on mandolin. Bhupal left for Australia. Since then, several lead guitarists have been part of the band, most of them for a couple of shows: primary amongst these were good friends Amrish Kelkar, Keith and Troy. Nishant could not continue with the band for several unavoidable reasons and luckily, Varun Venkit, drummer with Moonstruck, consented to play as a Blackbird! Bhupal returned from Australia in early December and the band is now a steady four piece: Dhruv on bass, Vinit on guitars and harmonica, Varun on drums and Bhupal on mandolin.

Plans for 2004 include recording a demo cd and then conducting a tour to promote the band and the cd. The Blackbirds played just 2 shows (albeit BIG ones) outside Pune, something they wish to set right this year. More visits to Mumbai are on the cards.

Thursday, 24 July 2003
Location, Location, Location. And Varun on drums! These two things turned around today's Barista gig at FC Road. Arrived at 5 pm and set up. And by 6:10 we were underway playing to 20

Tuesday, 22 July 2003
Just finished playing at Barista (MG Road). Like yesterday, today too, Vinit and I started off and immediately promised ourselves this would be the last ever gig at Barista. Whereas the whole vibe at Cafe Coffee Day is bouyant and buzzing, Barista seems to be dead in comparison with uptight clientele who come to stamp some kind of status truth upon themselves as if convincing their inner selves that they are upwardly mobile and getting somewhere. About half an hour later, I started singing alone with an acoustic: Pete Yorn, Oasis, The Who, Coldplay...mostly stuff that NEVER gets played anywhere anyways and was enjoying myself. Jackie from Strange Brew walked in though I never saw him. (Vinit told me) He must be wondering what the crap we're upto playing at a coffee shop! The fun part was when good ol' Italian pal Alberto came up and did his songs: "Shimoga town" and "Freedom" (his epic 6 minute Dylanesque songs) and followed it with a very interesting version of Knocking on Heaven's Door (No-No-Nockin on Heavensdoor). Then 2 girls came and sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in E major. The show ended and Vinit delivered some news: we are now to play on Thursday and Friday at FC Road. That's right: right on the street. And what's best is drums can come too!!! THAT should be interesting. When we played at Peppinos, we loved the huge (though ignorant) audience attention we got...let's see what playing at Barista can knock up. But if the manager at Barista thinks he's going to boost his coffee sales, he better think again.
Tomorrow's rest day before more practice and two gigs at Barista, leading up to our Sunday trip to Onyx, Bombay (if all goes well).

Friday, 18 July 2003
Cyclone is behind us. And in many ways it was a surprise: we started about 10 minutes after new thrash metal band outfit Black Hole Theory and they were going pretty well. And on our first song, Back in the USSR, I guess we were all a bit nervous, but in about 5 minutes we had a good crowd of about 80 really listening to us. Great gig, our first with Varun and he was spot on throughout. Almost. We did 5 originals which went down pretty well: one guy told me at the end of the gig that our originals were better than the covers we did. The food was vegetarian, which significantly upset Vinit. But we went home with a very positive feeling primarily becuase our expectations were low, in fact on the negative side. Plus we met some cool guys: the guys from Black Hole Theory, Vandy, Sam, Karan & Maitri.

LIST OF GIGS PLAYED TO DATE:
(Updated October 19 2003)

2002
1 Jun 15 02 Saturday Life Bistro
2 Jun 16 02 Sunday Life Bistro
3 Jun 17 02 Monday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd.
4 Jun 20 02 Thursday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd.
5 Jun 22 02 Saturday Life Bistro
6 Jun 23 02 Sunday Inox Theatre
7 Jun 23 02 Sunday Life Bistro

2003
8 Jan 24 03 Thursday Life Bistro
9 Jan 25 03 Friday Life Bistro
10 Feb 13 03 Thursday Life Bistro
11 Feb 15 03 Saturday Life Bistro
12 Feb 20 03 Thursday Life Bistro
13 Feb 21 03 Friday Life Bistro
14 Feb 22 03 Saturday Life Bistro
15 Feb 27 03 Thursday Life Bistro
16 Feb 28 03 Friday Life Bistro
17 Mar 01 03 Saturday Life Bistro
18 Mar 06 03 Friday Life Bistro
19 Mar 08 03 Saturday Life Bistro
20 Mar 13 03 Thursday Life Bistro
21 Mar 14 03 Friday Life Bistro
22 Mar 15 03 Saturday Life Bistro
23 Mar 21 03 Friday Life Bistro
24 Mar 22 03 Saturday Life Bistro
25 Mar 26 03 Wednesday The Jazz Garden
26 Mar 28 03 Friday Life Bistro
27 Mar 29 03 Saturday Life Bistro
28 Apr 08 03 Tuesday Private Function
29 Apr 25 03 Friday Life Bistro
30 Apr 26 03 Saturday Life Bistro
31 Apr 27 03 Sunday Private Function
32 May 09 03 Friday Life Bistro
33 May 10 03 Saturday Life Bistro
34 May 16 03 Friday Life Bistro
35 May 17 03 Saturday Life Bistro
36 May 18 03 Sunday (noon) Peppinos, FC Rd.
37 May 18 03 Sunday (evening) Peppinos, FC Rd.
38 May 21 03 Wednesday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd.
39 May 24 03 Saturday Farshid's
40 May 30 03 Friday Life Bistro
41 May 31 03 Saturday Life Bistro
42 June 01 03 Sunday (6-8 pm) Shoppers Stop
43 June 01 03 Sunday (9-11 pm) Life Bistro
44 June 04 03 Wednesday Indyaki
45 June 06 03 Friday Life Bistro
46 June 08 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street
47 June 14 03 Saturday Farshids
48 June 15 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street
49 June 20 03 Friday Life Bistro
50 June 21 03 Saturday Farshids
51 June 22 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street
52 June 28 03 Saturday Farshids
53 June 29 03 Sunday (11:30 am) Shoppers Stop
54 June 29 03 Sunday (2 pm) Crossword, JM Road
55 June 29 03 Sunday (4 pm) Café Coffee Day, FC Road
56 June 29 03 Sunday (7 pm) Life Bistro
57 June 29 03 Sunday (10 pm) Ten Downing Street
58 July 03 03 Thursday Life Bistro
59 July 05 03 Saturday Turf Club House
60 July 12 03 Saturday The Jazz Garden
61 July 16 03 Wednesday The Jazz Garden
62 July 18 03 Friday Cyclone
63 July 21 03 Monday Barista, MG Road
64 July 22 03 Tuesday Barista, MG Road
65 July 24 03 Thursday Barista, FC Road
66 July 25 03 Friday Barista, JM Road
67 July 28 03 Monday Barista, JM Road
68 July 29 03 Tuesday Barista, JM Road
69 July 30 03 Wednesday Barista, JM Road
70 July 31 03 Thursday Barista, JM Road
71 Aug 14 03 Thursday Jazz Garden
72 Aug 16 03 Saturday Jazz Garden
73 Aug 29 03 Friday Life Bistro
74 Sept 05 03 Friday Life Bistro
75 Sept 06 03 Saturday Jazz Garden
76 Sept 12 03 Friday Life Bistro
77 Sept 13 03 Saturday Life Bistro
78 Sept 19 03 Friday Ten Downing Street
79 Sept 26 03 Friday Life Bistro
80 Oct 10 03 Friday Jazz Garden (Lennon Nite)

Venue Inquiries:
Life Bistro (Animesh/Rajesh: 6133811); Café Coffee Day (Kiran 9890197993); INOX Theatre (Dhannya); Jazz Garden (Homi 6817412); Peppinos (Aarti/Sumant 513227);
Farshids (Gautam 9822118506), Shoppers Stop (Hemant Taware 4014954/9); Indyaki (Mayuri 6055116); Ten Downing Street (Vanam Surender 9890210102); Crossword (VM Kulkarni 5537005/06); Turf Club House (Ravi Pandey, GM 6361036); Barista (Perviz 9422032010)


				*The Blackbirds* *Tour Diary*



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		From the eye of the Blackbird...



		The Blackbirds Diary (For Comments, Write to Dhruv: yoursdhruly@hotmail.com) Friday, 02 January 2004 A whole year gone by. Almost. The Blackbirds DID play 7 shows in June 2002, but the real story only started with their first gig of the year at Life Bistro on the 24th of January. To date, the band has played an impressive 103 gigs. Most of them with Dhruv and Vinit holding fort, but nonetheless. The high point of the year has to have been making the finals at Mood Indigo and playing to a HUGE crowd, 8000 odd maybe? Definitely more than 5000. On a less eventful but as important level, the band has met an incredible number of people and made friends with many of them. The Blackbirds have had the privilege of playing shows with musicians of the calibre of Roger Dragonnette, Valentino and Jayant and have also been joined on several an occasion by friends including Jaideep Gokhale and Pierre Fitter. The Blackbirds have gone through the usual band member instabilities. While Dhruv and Vinit have always played together, members have come and gone at the other end. The band started off with Nishant on drums and Bhupal on mandolin. Bhupal left for Australia. Since then, several lead guitarists have been part of the band, most of them for a couple of shows: primary amongst these were good friends Amrish Kelkar, Keith and Troy. Nishant could not continue with the band for several unavoidable reasons and luckily, Varun Venkit, drummer with Moonstruck, consented to play as a Blackbird! Bhupal returned from Australia in early December and the band is now a steady four piece: Dhruv on bass, Vinit on guitars and harmonica, Varun on drums and Bhupal on mandolin. Plans for 2004 include recording a demo cd and then conducting a tour to promote the band and the cd. The Blackbirds played just 2 shows (albeit BIG ones) outside Pune, something they wish to set right this year. More visits to Mumbai are on the cards. Thursday, 24 July 2003 Location, Location, Location. And Varun on drums! These two things turned around today's Barista gig at FC Road. Arrived at 5 pm and set up. And by 6:10 we were underway playing to 20 Tuesday, 22 July 2003 Just finished playing at Barista (MG Road). Like yesterday, today too, Vinit and I started off and immediately promised ourselves this would be the last ever gig at Barista. Whereas the whole vibe at Cafe Coffee Day is bouyant and buzzing, Barista seems to be dead in comparison with uptight clientele who come to stamp some kind of status truth upon themselves as if convincing their inner selves that they are upwardly mobile and getting somewhere. About half an hour later, I started singing alone with an acoustic: Pete Yorn, Oasis, The Who, Coldplay...mostly stuff that NEVER gets played anywhere anyways and was enjoying myself. Jackie from Strange Brew walked in though I never saw him. (Vinit told me) He must be wondering what the crap we're upto playing at a coffee shop! The fun part was when good ol' Italian pal Alberto came up and did his songs: "Shimoga town" and "Freedom" (his epic 6 minute Dylanesque songs) and followed it with a very interesting version of Knocking on Heaven's Door (No-No-Nockin on Heavensdoor). Then 2 girls came and sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in E major. The show ended and Vinit delivered some news: we are now to play on Thursday and Friday at FC Road. That's right: right on the street. And what's best is drums can come too!!! THAT should be interesting. When we played at Peppinos, we loved the huge (though ignorant) audience attention we got...let's see what playing at Barista can knock up. But if the manager at Barista thinks he's going to boost his coffee sales, he better think again. Tomorrow's rest day before more practice and two gigs at Barista, leading up to our Sunday trip to Onyx, Bombay (if all goes well). Friday, 18 July 2003 Cyclone is behind us. And in many ways it was a surprise: we started about 10 minutes after new thrash metal band outfit Black Hole Theory and they were going pretty well. And on our first song, Back in the USSR, I guess we were all a bit nervous, but in about 5 minutes we had a good crowd of about 80 really listening to us. Great gig, our first with Varun and he was spot on throughout. Almost. We did 5 originals which went down pretty well: one guy told me at the end of the gig that our originals were better than the covers we did. The food was vegetarian, which significantly upset Vinit. But we went home with a very positive feeling primarily becuase our expectations were low, in fact on the negative side. Plus we met some cool guys: the guys from Black Hole Theory, Vandy, Sam, Karan & Maitri. LIST OF GIGS PLAYED TO DATE: (Updated October 19 2003) 2002 1 Jun 15 02 Saturday Life Bistro 2 Jun 16 02 Sunday Life Bistro 3 Jun 17 02 Monday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd. 4 Jun 20 02 Thursday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd. 5 Jun 22 02 Saturday Life Bistro 6 Jun 23 02 Sunday Inox Theatre 7 Jun 23 02 Sunday Life Bistro 2003 8 Jan 24 03 Thursday Life Bistro 9 Jan 25 03 Friday Life Bistro 10 Feb 13 03 Thursday Life Bistro 11 Feb 15 03 Saturday Life Bistro 12 Feb 20 03 Thursday Life Bistro 13 Feb 21 03 Friday Life Bistro 14 Feb 22 03 Saturday Life Bistro 15 Feb 27 03 Thursday Life Bistro 16 Feb 28 03 Friday Life Bistro 17 Mar 01 03 Saturday Life Bistro 18 Mar 06 03 Friday Life Bistro 19 Mar 08 03 Saturday Life Bistro 20 Mar 13 03 Thursday Life Bistro 21 Mar 14 03 Friday Life Bistro 22 Mar 15 03 Saturday Life Bistro 23 Mar 21 03 Friday Life Bistro 24 Mar 22 03 Saturday Life Bistro 25 Mar 26 03 Wednesday The Jazz Garden 26 Mar 28 03 Friday Life Bistro 27 Mar 29 03 Saturday Life Bistro 28 Apr 08 03 Tuesday Private Function 29 Apr 25 03 Friday Life Bistro 30 Apr 26 03 Saturday Life Bistro 31 Apr 27 03 Sunday Private Function 32 May 09 03 Friday Life Bistro 33 May 10 03 Saturday Life Bistro 34 May 16 03 Friday Life Bistro 35 May 17 03 Saturday Life Bistro 36 May 18 03 Sunday (noon) Peppinos, FC Rd. 37 May 18 03 Sunday (evening) Peppinos, FC Rd. 38 May 21 03 Wednesday Café Coffee Day, FC Rd. 39 May 24 03 Saturday Farshid's 40 May 30 03 Friday Life Bistro 41 May 31 03 Saturday Life Bistro 42 June 01 03 Sunday (6-8 pm) Shoppers Stop 43 June 01 03 Sunday (9-11 pm) Life Bistro 44 June 04 03 Wednesday Indyaki 45 June 06 03 Friday Life Bistro 46 June 08 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street 47 June 14 03 Saturday Farshids 48 June 15 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street 49 June 20 03 Friday Life Bistro 50 June 21 03 Saturday Farshids 51 June 22 03 Sunday Ten Downing Street 52 June 28 03 Saturday Farshids 53 June 29 03 Sunday (11:30 am) Shoppers Stop 54 June 29 03 Sunday (2 pm) Crossword, JM Road 55 June 29 03 Sunday (4 pm) Café Coffee Day, FC Road 56 June 29 03 Sunday (7 pm) Life Bistro 57 June 29 03 Sunday (10 pm) Ten Downing Street 58 July 03 03 Thursday Life Bistro 59 July 05 03 Saturday Turf Club House 60 July 12 03 Saturday The Jazz Garden 61 July 16 03 Wednesday The Jazz Garden 62 July 18 03 Friday Cyclone 63 July 21 03 Monday Barista, MG Road 64 July 22 03 Tuesday Barista, MG Road 65 July 24 03 Thursday Barista, FC Road 66 July 25 03 Friday Barista, JM Road 67 July 28 03 Monday Barista, JM Road 68 July 29 03 Tuesday Barista, JM Road 69 July 30 03 Wednesday Barista, JM Road 70 July 31 03 Thursday Barista, JM Road 71 Aug 14 03 Thursday Jazz Garden 72 Aug 16 03 Saturday Jazz Garden 73 Aug 29 03 Friday Life Bistro 74 Sept 05 03 Friday Life Bistro 75 Sept 06 03 Saturday Jazz Garden 76 Sept 12 03 Friday Life Bistro 77 Sept 13 03 Saturday Life Bistro 78 Sept 19 03 Friday Ten Downing Street 79 Sept 26 03 Friday Life Bistro 80 Oct 10 03 Friday Jazz Garden (Lennon Nite) Venue Inquiries: Life Bistro (Animesh/Rajesh: 6133811); Café Coffee Day (Kiran 9890197993); INOX Theatre (Dhannya); Jazz Garden (Homi 6817412); Peppinos (Aarti/Sumant 513227); Farshids (Gautam 9822118506), Shoppers Stop (Hemant Taware 4014954/9); Indyaki (Mayuri 6055116); Ten Downing Street (Vanam Surender 9890210102); Crossword (VM Kulkarni 5537005/06); Turf Club House (Ravi Pandey, GM 6361036); Barista (Perviz 9422032010)