If love makes the world go around, then music certainly sets the background score. And it was for this love of music that the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music organised an Open Mic Night to celebrate World Music Day on Tuesday. Held in the backyard of Tryst Café, the evening had in store a number of memorable performances, and the perfect setting — a gentle sea breeze, the café’s multitude of cats and its vibrant green canopy of grape vines.
As the name suggests, the stage was open for anyone — from bands, to solo artistes and even bathroom singers. The idea, says Siddhartha Ramanathan, an alumnus of S.A.M., was to “encourage people to explore their musical side. You often have people say that they love music and listen to a lot of it. But very few of them would take the stage to actually perform. Incidentally, some of the best singers are those who think they’re terrible.”
The event opened with a performance by the alumni of S.A.M. as Siddhartha, Kashyap Jaishankar and Manu Krishnan set the pace with an energetic ‘Chameleon’, with its elaborate guitar riffs and drum beats. They were soon joined by Nikhila Sharma on vocals with a couple of jazz songs — ‘Softly as in a Morning Sunrise’ and ‘Fly me to the moon’.
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Next up was solo artiste Rohith Ganesh with the progressive rock number ‘Benighted’. Though his performance was good, unfortunately for Rohith, the terrible audio quality forced him to cut short his act. To give him due credit, he went on to complete his song unfazed.
The rest of the evening saw a smattering of experimental rock from the band Ballpoint Bananas, with original tracks like ‘Stop, stand and stare’ and ‘Amy’ and a Hindi number ‘Dil Khudgarz Hai’ by amateur solo artiste Nimish. It was, however, Stevie and the Band that owned the stage with their originals from their upcoming EP with numbers like ‘Silver to Crimson’, ‘Becky’ and ‘Burn’.
The highlight, though, was an impromptu jam between Mandolin Aravind Bhargav and the S.A.M. alumni. While the Carnatic artiste set the tone for the performance with an alapana followed by tanam and ragam, he was soon joined by Sashank Venkatesh, Kashyap and Manu on guitars and drums.
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With varying styles and levels of experience, the Open Mic was the perfect celebration of music, with each artiste bringing a little something of their own to the stage.