50 thoughts on three years of post-pandemic concert going

By Aakash Karkare

From Kings of Convenience in Lisbon, to ageing rockers in Bangalore, and blue-light diver bar dancing in Mumbai, here's our rundown on live music in our digital age.

For most of my life I wasn’t much of a concert goer. Until my teens, MTV Select was the tastemaker for music in our home. I listened to the songs my sisters listened to. Around the time I turned 15, I was able to acquire a very cheap, hyperlocal internet connection called Five Net that provided unlimited data and I finally dove deep into the world of music. I spent hours reading album reviews, browsed Pitchfork archives and websites that no longer seemed to exist. Or the Google search algorithm has been so tinkered with that I am unable to access them any longer. Limewire and Bittorrent and Mininova were my library of Babylon. Post Punk of Joy Division, the folk rock of Bob Dylan, the angry lyrics of The Who, the punk rock of Shonen Knife, British invasion, and on and on.

One artist would lead me to another and then interviews by these musicians would lead me to the people who inspired them. Somehow, however, live music had never appealed to me. I didn’t enjoy crowds, and perhaps, being six feet six inches tall I wondered if I would be bothering other people by standing in their way. Besides, I remember thinking to myself, how much better could it be than YouTube? I know, I know. But I was young, and stupid and very opinionated. Not a great combo but it is what it is. 

This all changed during the pandemic. 

During that infernal hellscape of a global situation, I kept having a single recurring dream. One day this would be over. One day I would find myself at a sweaty concert. People around me would be shouting and screaming and having a good time and not caring if anyone would be coughing, or be wearing a mask, and no-one, not a single person would be talking about Covid. So when we were finally free from lockdowns and similar burdens, I let loose with a vengeance. Partook in both revenge travel and revenge concert going. So, without further ado, in no particular order, and inspired by the post-slam mailbags of L Jon Wertheim, here are 50 of my thoughts of three years of concert going

• Encores are out-dated. Yes I know, it is a form of showmanship. But we all know they are going to happen. We all know that the rockstar (s) are going to return for another song. Yes, of course fans expect them. But it seems too rehearsed, too manicured. The only one who did it well was Yuja Wang who left the stage and came back eight times. If you are doing eight encores, then, yes, you have my permission to go ahead and give them.

• Music festivals are great for maybe a day. And at least 60 percent of the bands that show up suck. Mahindra Independence Rock was the only exception to this rule

• Down with wristbands and QR codes.

• My favourite genre of music is awkward floppy haired men playing the acoustic guitar.

• Old ageing rockers a la Deep Purple and the like are not fun to watch live anymore. They are basically replaying their greatest hits and those were already stale in the 90s. They are, as one music critic put it about many ageing rockers, a cover band of their old selves.

• Small intimate concerts are far better that crowded stadium, arena venues. 

• Except Mahindra Independence Rock. I didn’t go for the second one since it came back but the first one, with a view of the Arabian Sea, and one great band after another knocked it out of the park. 

• It’s difficult to say which is the better experience. Going for a band you’ve loved since you were a teen (Kings of Convenience for me) or going for a concert where you don’t really care for the bands and are there for the vibes. The former can be more emotional but the latter can be filled with surprises and in the age of rotten tomatoes and online reviews is an increasingly rare experience. Let’s go with the latter.

• Getting to and from a concert is a pain. Particularly in India. Particularly in Mumbai and Bangalore. In Mumbai, best to get an Ola for the day and have him park in the lot. In Bengaluru, get an AirBnb near the venue. 

• Pre-game is a delicate balance. Get drunk enough so you don’t have to pay for the overpriced alcohol at the venue ( or stand in queue) but not so drunk that you miss the concert. 

• Leave at least 30 minutes before what you think is the right time to leave. And if going with other people begin the process of convincing other people to leave at least 60 minutes before you think they should. 

• Theory: People in general find it difficult to be on time anywhere post covid. Either traffic has gone up. Or our sense of time has been warped. I am unable to figure out which is the right answer.

• Avial and Parikrama are beautiful jam bands with great crowd work. I didn’t get them until I saw them live. They talk to the audience and far better that then senile ageing rockers from the 80s finally coming to India because no one wants to hear them in the West.

•  Farhan Akhtar, how much ever I love your movies, and your production companies, you are not a rock star. Nor is Saif Ali Khan. I get capitalism. I understand they bring eyeballs. But to paraphrase Logan Roy, these are not serious musicians. 

• The best food at any concert venue in Mumbai remains hot dogs by Kaavo Meats. 

• Only book one day of a two day concert. You have to recover by Monday. And one day is enough music. At least for me. 

• The toilets that are furthest away from the concert venue are usually the emptiest.

• Ditto the food stands.

• Childhood snacks are being repacked to those who grew up in the 90s. At the most recent concert I went to, Ed Sheeran in Mahalaxmi, they were selling the frozen “pepsi” candies for 350 rupees.

• Mahalaxmi Race Course is an absolutely terrible concert venue. Acoustics are crap.

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• Serious musicians performing at home concerts do not like being asked to play Wonderwall or Coldplay. I get it. But when you are drunk that is what you want to sing.

• I will never go to Bonobo. Not to pick up people when I am single. Not to listen to music in the dark dingy inner room. Not to the Bollywood music place near it. Not to Mitron. Not to Escobar. Not to Opa or Silly or any of these other places. I am too old. Maybe too cranky. Or just too cool.

• The only place to go for DJ music in Bombay is Little Easy on a Friday Night. They play all the music that if you are born post 1990 you have grown up listening to. Go with a large crowd. Get drunk out of your mind or close to it. And dance to Its The Time To Disco while munching on Prawn Sesame Toast. Far better than it sounds.

• I’d recommend another place in Bandra, Back to Door one, but that has already been co-opted into playing largely reel songs and beats by a DJ who doesn't understand when to play beats. The first time I went there, though, t’was a merry time.

• Mahindra Blues Concert involved a mix up. It taught an important life lesson. The headliner, Buddy Guy in this case, will only play on Day 2. The amphitheater is too crowded at Mehbood Studio, the better venue is the open air garden place. The music might be hit or miss but without a doubt it's my kind of gig. A mixed crowd. No influencers taking photos for the ‘gram. And the focus is purely the music. People have come here to enjoy the art. Nothing more. Nothing less.

• Lollapalooza sucks. I don’t care if Bob Dylan comes there, I will never attend it as long as I live. The venue is not conducive to live music. The stages are too far apart. The acoustics suck. I walked out, ate bheja fry at Noorani, and that frankly was better than anything at the concert. So disappointing was my experience that I refused to return for The Strokes on the following night because I will go for their concert at a better venue. 

• Even January in Mumbai is not good enough to bust out a denim jacket. I blame Lollapalooza for driving away the heat.

• Can musicians stop asking us to make noise? Sir, you make the noise, we listen.

• AP Dhillon, I like his music and all, but I don't know what that live performance was. 

• Ed Sheeran and Diljit Dosanj singing Lover was prettay prettay good even though I do not like the former one iota.

• Unused money on wristbands must lead to a sizable amount of profits. 

• Jio Gardens as a venue also sucks. 

• Concerts in May in Mumbai are not a great idea.

• Book My Show doesn't know how to organise concerts. But yet they have every single tender and contract. It is a monopoly on the level of VFS. Please someone disrupt it.

• PVR Market City in Kurla is a venue for concerts.

• Mall concerts signify everything wrong with the modern mix of art and commerce. 

• Food at St Andrews in Bandra where I went to attend a dance performance by a friend is different from most other places. They have beef sandwiches and chorizo-pao. I recommend wholeheartedly. 

• At the road next to Benzers leading up to Sophia College, there’s a pretty decent pani puri to fill up on before or after the concert. 

• Winter in Bangalore is the best time for concerts in India. 

• Don’t drink Fireball shots. 

• Corn Dogs are everything you thought they were going to be.

• I am a bad rock fan. I want Goo Goo Dolls to play Iris and then leave the stage. I want to hear Highway Star and Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and then leave the concert. War on Drugs and Parikrama were better experiences than either of the aforementioned bands.

• Each year, I cannot stand Domino’s pizza. Each year at a concert they must make a killing.

• Ed Sheeran thrives on some otherworldly energy.

• Going with 50,000 people to a concert is not my idea of fun anymore.

• If you must perform for a camera rather than looking at the musician, please do it somewhere to the side and not in the view of the rest of us.

• The favourite food at concerts was by the cook at an AirBnB in Bangalore. Fresh hot dosas in the morning. Packets of fried papads with rice and chicken curry in the evening. Hot freshly prepared food by someone else that tastes good is a commodity most millennials are severely lacking in.

• I am convinced that the hard liquor served at concerts is bootlegged and watered down.

• Why the VIP stands are far away from the stage is beyond me. Maybe it’s the music industry’s subtle dig at that class of people.

• Has music quality on headphones and streamers become so good that concerts are not that great an experience anymore?