Highway Jammers perform at a cafe in Bhubaneswar
ARINDAM GANGULY, OP
BHUBANESWAR: The city is slowly but steadily emerging as a major centre for music lovers. As a new mood sets in over the city amid considerable cash flows, the cafes here are increasingly experimenting with new styles and themes. One prominent change that has come about in cafes of late is of organising the karaoke shows. Performing at these venues are the city’s popular bands who present a mix of Hindi and English songs to loud cheers from the audience. The shows are gaining popularity also as music fans get a chance to listen to some of the choicest songs in different forms, like rock, indipop, fusion etc. Karaoke is an entertainment form in which participants take turns to sing popular songs with the aid of a microphone over prerecorded backing tracks. This is mostly done in the cafes and clubs. City cafes like Café Frespresso, Centeral Perk 7, Brewberries, Adda, The Hub, Chilumm etc took to this in a commendable way. They are organising Karaoke shows in the weekends, when halls are full, and city bands perform on public demand. “We give a chance to the audience to sing their favourite songs. We offer them free mocktails for
the performance,” said Anubhav Mohanty, owner of Central Perk7, the theme-based restaurant in Chandrasekharpur.
He added: “We had started this as an experiment two months ago and found it’s winning huge popularity. The bands perform the best of English and Hindi songs, which creates a nice environment.” Said
, a college student: “The experience of listening to the best of music, live, at the cafes is very exciting. The sounds of guitar and of keyboard reaching a high pitch are really awesome.” City bands are taking this as an opportunity to create a fan base and add to the popularity of the bands.
Abhijeet Chaterjee of The Fallen Moon, a new band formed in February this year, is upbeat about this. He said, “The performance gives us an instant feedback and this also helps us promote our brand. In cities like Kolkata and Mumbai, the band and Karaoke culture is hugely popular. Here this culture is new, but it is slowly developing.” Added he, “In the cafes, we perform popular Bollywood songs on public demand. We generally perform in a low pitch because the surroundings are not vast. We also perform some of our own compositions. We do this to get an instant reaction irrespective of whether or not the composition is good or not.” They recently performed in the BJEM. Said Soumesh Das Patnaik of Café Frespreesso, “The cafes in the city have to keep doing something different. Life is changing, and moods are not the dull old ones. Young people are no more coming to cafes in the evening for coffee and snacks. They need to lift their moods to new highs. So, these Karaoke programmes are one new way to attract people to cafes. We publish the updates of the shows in the social media in advance, and the shows see huge footfalls. We are planning to start ticket shows in the coming days. This will help both the bands and us, as the youths will step in for the shows.” Anindya Shankar Das of Highway Jammer, which was formed in 2010 and had participated in the national-level band
shows like Sennheiser Contest for India Emerging Bands and had wonappreciation from musicians like Shankar Mahadevan, Salim Merchant etc, said, “The scene was totally different two years ago. People didn’t have any clue about these things. We thought of starting this, and went to many cafes. We asked them for a chance to do the shows. Many were skeptical.
Finally, at Café Frespresso, we got the nod and we began the journey at the New Year’s Party. The reaction we got was huge. There we started this journey.” Added he: “These shows do help us to be popular. The band scenario is still in its adolescent stage here. Many bands had started and then broken apart due to many factors. We launched our album Nayi Shuruwat in the cafes recently and it’s a great success.” Anindya said, “We also start going live with our shows in cafes. This attracts online audience to also join online and enjoy the shows.”
Dichen Nayak of Jewels Back who performed in Chilumm and also the India Surf Festival, said that the band scenario is still developing. “The present café performance helps the bands earn a name for the band. A challenge is that the monetary angle is not high at present. This is because the cafes give the bands a chance to perform in their rooms without paying any money. To solve the issue, a ticket system must be introduced, of which everybody gets to make some money from these shows.
