Jamming it up

British Film Institute, London. This was the first gig of our tour and the Circus shook the BFI. Susheela Raman and Sam Mills joined us for the song Dhuan from the soundtrack of Gandu. We had one round of informal practice at the breakfast table with acoustic guitars and she picked up the Bangla chorus in no time. Susheela opened the set with a Bangla song. The Rajasthani folk dons Kutle Khan on kartal and Nathu Solanki on nagara joined them on stage. They jammed with us on a couple of tracks. The show went completely berserk when Steve Savale from Asian Dub Foundation played Gandu with us. Susheela is amazing and Sam is a guru and both sustained the madness ending with Raise Up Your Hands. Yes, all of us bounced together on stage!

Neel and Susheela Raman	Q pumps it up with Susheela

Look who’s in the backdrop!

The first day of the tour found us at the London premiere of Gangs Of Wasseypur. Anurag Kashyap had a very interesting Q&A after the film. The London Indian Film Festival was using an image from Gandu for the backdrop of all their posters and leaflets. That drew our attention. So, we stood in attention!

The backyard

The yard is a space for performing arts in East London. It’s one of those happening-yet-underground spaces where you have a lot of theatre and music performances. Kanti (Tin Can) and Vikram Iyengar (Ranan) were in attendance. Kanti was our local guide, friend and philosopher. It’s funny how the graffiti and the art get better in the rundown parts of town.

Neel and Jivraj at the GOW premiere in London	East London

Carrying Calcutta with us

Q is having a moment as it’s plain to the eye at our third gig of the tour in Le Khedive, Brussels. We had to do two different versions of Gandu, the title track, before the Belgian crowd let us go. In the crowd, it was great to see Allesandro, the Italian keyboard player who had stayed in Calcutta for a few years. Each of our songs had a projection video with shots of Calcutta and snips from the film. The transitions between the songs had different ambiences from Calcutta recorded by us on the streets and other places. We are spreading the warmth of Calcutta through the noise and chaos wherever we go.

High on life

Belgian cartoons have a heritage and it’s evident on the walls of the city. Jiver (Jivraj Singh) enjoys a drink of the comic table while we mentally prepare for the second Brussels gig at the Live Music Cafe. Packed house and sound with full power, we did this gig without our projections and yet again we had to do a couple of encores. We musicians have a hard life... well... what can we say!

Q on stage in Le Khedive	Jivraj raises a toast

Raw power

In between the gigs, we caught the Couleur Cafe Festival in Brussels where we saw the legendary Buena Vista Social Club play a stunning set. Later in the day, we saw Public Enemy destroy the crowd with their raw power.

What’s in a name!

Artsy Fartsy. Yes, the club was actually called that! The club in Cologne is really small and normally doubles as an art gallery. There was a screening of Gandu, followed by the performance. Some film buffs who had seen Gandu earlier drove 200km to watch the gig. We were deeply flattered and alarmed to learn this after the gig, only to find out that it’s a way of life for some people. God bless the Bildstorung guys for releasing the DVD of Gandu in Germany.

Couleur Cafe Festival in Brussels	Public Enemy turns it on

Wrap-up time

Last stop before we returned to London was Berlin. KaterHolzig is a space which contains five clubs and several bars. The party crowd started rolling in at midnight. Gandu Circus got on stage at 1am. We had a great gig and the tour was officially over but the partying had just begun. We danced till 10am but the crowds hadn’t even thinned. We caught Jalebee Cartel and Moog Conspiracy amongst several other awesome acts.

Public Enemy turns it on

HOME-ING IN

After finishing London-Brussels-Cologne-Berlin, we were just getting warmed up. So the last four days in London passed like a storm between hanging out with Susheela and Sam and working on the upcoming Gandu Circus collaboration. I even managed to sing Red House with a blues band in Hackney Central on the second last day. We almost missed the flight back on purpose… but we’re back here, aren’t we?!

Romain of Moog Conspiracy with their Berlin host Maria	Are you a Gandu Circus fan? Why? Tell t2@abp.in