I BELIEVE IN MUSIC: Singer Usha Uthup rocks a Park Street address. A Telegraph picture

Tomake chai, over a beer. Hey Jude, with Chicken Tetrazinni. Aankhon ke saagar drowned in a haze of smoke? Live music in Calcutta is rocking, again.

Whether it?s Neel & Neel at Caf? Mueller or Cactus at Trincas or good ol? Hip Pocket at Someplace Else, music in the city is no longer about stage concerts and stadium shows. Experimental, informal and intimate, the gigs are almost an extension of an adda session, on and off Park Street.

Vocalist Neel Adhikary says: ?Calcutta is now the place for live music. There are no such platforms in Delhi, Bangalore is dry, and Mumbai is all about remixes. What this means is that young musicians here are encouraged to take up music as a profession and not stick to management courses. They do not feel that intimidated any more.?

The other half of Neel & Neel, Neel Dutt, welcomes the trend as the harbinger of original music. ?We can now sing our own songs and not just play covers. After pubs and bars, we?ll now venture into coffee shops and bookstores and play the music we create in our bedrooms.?

Even when Neel?s father Anjan Dutt decided to go folk, the actor-director-singer chose the pub at Park Hotel. ?I was looking for a place where the listeners could relax, reminisce and reflect. Someplace Else fitted the bill perfectly. It is one place in the city where you can experiment with music.?

Experimentation is also the key at Caf? Mueller, the cafeteria at Max Mueller Bhavan. Says programme director S.V. Raman: ?We used to have shows here, where bands like Bhoomi and Skinny Alley performed during their early days. But then, somehow, there were not enough live bands coming up. The situation?s changed, and now we want to provide a comfortable ambience for younger groups. In fact, this reincarnation of our cafeteria was kick-started by the St James School band Clone.?

The resurgence of guitar-and-gang gigs goes beyond barriers of language, age and locale. So, if there is Usha Uthup singing the opening bars at Trincas, youngsters Neel & Neel carry forward the sound way beyond Park Street. And if Anjan Dutt?s Blowin? in the wind sways one and all once every month, Bangla bands have joined the beat bandwagon in style.

The Bangla Rock Festival at Trincas was a huge success. Says Shashi Puri, co-owner of the restaurant: ?We realise there is a change in the taste of music.

So, 45 years after Trincas became the capital of live English music, we got the sound of Bangla on Park Street. In the process, we exposed the bands to a different audience and also exposed our guests to a different music. It worked both ways.?

The connect is direct. Says Lakkhichhara drummer Gaurab Chatterjee: ?The best thing is that you can almost touch the crowds.?