Ehsaan and Loy in performance with Skinny Alley at Someplace Else on Saturday. Picture by Rashbehari Das

A casual peek into Someplace Else on Saturday night would have suggested that there was something special happening. And if you stayed on even a bit, the melody makers of Bollywood biggies like Bunty Aur Babli and Dil Chahta Hai would have surely got to you.

Not with their trademark Bollywood sounds but with a heady mix of jazz and blues, as cover versions of Santana and Steely Dan rocked Someplace Else.

But then again, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonca have always been much more than just members of the hit Bollywood music director trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. While they have topped the charts with their desi dhuns and techno arrangements in Hindi films, the two have been playing Western stuff right from when it all began.

In fact, Ehsaan is a specialist Blues guitarist having trained in Los Angeles while Loy has played the keyboards in many a cover band in Delhi and Mumbai.

“The music we played on Saturday night is our real roots and we were really comfortable,” said Ehsaan, the morning after enthralling a packed pub at The Park.

“Frankly speaking, we do not get to play this kind of music back in Mumbai and it was really like a shot in the arm. The Park people want us to come and perform again and we are already looking forward to our next visit.”

Friends Skinny Alley made the Saturday night gig happen and Jayshree and the gang were there in full force jamming with Ehsaan and Loy.

“The Calcutta crowds have the patience to listen to all kinds of music and that’s a great thing. Even when we played with Saturday Night Blues band late into the night, there were people egging us on,” said Ehsaan.

Roxanne and Smoke on the water were welcome breaks from Kajra re and Tanhayee. “Even when we record the Hindi songs in the studios, Loy is constantly playing jazz and I am playing blues. So we are never out of touch with the music we started out with,” signed off Ehsaan.