Ananth Menon and Vedanth Bharadwaj, will play an intimate acoustic tribute to Simon & Garfunkel at Jagriti Theatre this weekend. Called Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme (remember the herbs from ‘Scarborough Fair’?) the concert will feature many favourites including ‘Sound Of Silence’, ‘Peggy O’, ‘Richard Cory’, ‘Mrs Robinson’, ‘I Am A Rock’, ‘Homeward Bound’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ and ‘The Boxer.’
Menon is a guitarist and singer from Bengaluru and has been active in the blues and rock scene for the last 16 years performing with the Chronic Blues Circus, Galeej Gurus and Parachute XVI among others. Bharadwaj composes music for films, ads, dance and theatre. The director of the Chennai Children's Choir, Bharadwaj has formally learnt Carnatic, Hindustani and Western classical music.
Menon and Bharadwaj met in high school, at Rishi Valley. “Vedanth and I spent many hours with Simon & Garfunkel’s music back at school,” Menon says. “It was the perfect music to practice our singing and guitar playing. While we’ve each played some of these tunes over the years, we’ve only just put together this tribute. I guess we needed time to grow together, go our separate ways musically and then return to pay homage. Now, sitting across each other, it feels right. It feels truly like two Old Friends.”
“In the words of Paul Simon, ‘It means more than you can know’ to Ananth and me,” says Bharadwaj. “It was music that enabled our friendship and a lot of it was Simon & Garfunkel. We had a lot of fun figuring out the chords and singing these songs back in school. We've never sung as many of their songs as we will be at this concert and we are so excited. Paul Simon just finished his final concert tour a couple of months ago. Though we hope this is not actually the end and there will be a lot more of his music, our concert will be an apt tribute.”
Menon says, “It is not possible to have a single favourite, but among our top tracks is ‘He was my Brother’, ‘Richard Cory’, ‘Sparrow’, ‘Old Friends’ as well as the usual suspects. And I have got no least favourite.” Bharadwaj agrees that there isn’t an S&G number he doesn’t like counting “‘He was my Brother’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘He was a Most Peculiar Man’, ‘The Sun is Burning in the Sky’ and ‘Scarborough Fair’” among his favourites.
(Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme will be on December 8 and 9 at Jagriti Theatre, Whitefield. Tickets available at www.bookmyshow.com)
