An evening at the concert…

Truth be told, I’ve never been a die hard fan of Coldplay. Although you have heard their songs , and many of their songs live rent-free inside your head, you still don’t count yourself as a die hard fan. But then your burgers and fries is, so you tag along for your burgers and fries, at the same time you could also do with a distraction, with all that was happening in your life. 

By the end of the night, you were glad that you did. It was something magical. Something that you didn’t know that you needed till you experienced it.

You didn’t just see them perform, you didn’t just hear the songs that they sang, you felt the music as it moved through you, reverberating through your body. You felt the music in the air that moved you and all who were there. An experience for all the entire sensory system.

The music turned its magic on, and suddenly you could feel your heart beat beneath your skin, making you feel alive again! 

The music turned on a switch and the stadium was bathed in the beautiful glow of the countless bands that lit up on cue as the music played. It felt like the stars had descended on to the stadium and were shinning just for you and they were yellow, red and blue and every colour. Was this what paradise looked like, or was just dream of paradise. It was indeed an adventure of a lifetime, an experience of a lifetime.

The music traveled from the stage to your heart at the speed of sound leaving you with this feeling like you were drunk and high. It had this power that made you feel like you were their universe and all they wanted to do was put you first.

It didn’t matter who you were, if you weren’t any kind of superhero. All it asked of you is where you wanted to go and how much you were willing to risk, and it took you just there, something just like this, what you wanted.

You joined the countless others in that stadium, singing, dancing and cheering and clapping, like you were part of some Roman Cavalry Choir singing as Jerusalem bells could be heard ringing.

Even songs that you weren’t familiar with had you humming and singing and dancing along.

It felt so special, it felt so magical, an experience that you were glad to experience knowing that you almost had thoughts of giving it a miss because of your troubles and strife (and not wife, cause yours truly is unmarried and single). You were glad you got to share this experience with your burgers and fries knowing how much it meant to them, but then you never knew that you needed this too.

You just prayed that this moment would never end. But like everything that’s beautiful and good, this too had to come to an official end.

But not before you it had you squealing with delight when Chris Martin playfully and jokingly said he was from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, causing you and your burgers and fries to cheer loudly.

In the end, when the band finally sang Fix You it had the entire stadium singing in unison. In that moment you knew that the music, like a soothing balm, like a beautiful, magical ointment, fixed you, fixed the pain and lowness and loneliness you felt, that you were going through. As the band sang you could see the lights guiding you home, slowly trying to fix you.

In the end you were glad that you listened to your burgers and fries and put all that you were going through behind you and attended something so magical, a kind of once in a lifetime experience, something you hadn’t experienced before and something you may not experience again. Ok that may not be entirely true, but not in the same way.

So in the end you sure did have a one of a kind, experience of a lifetime!!!

The Mathematical Music

To be honest, when you’ve never been to a concert before, (that’s if you can discount the Whigfield concert that you had been to when you were in college, before your English paper, which . But didn’t quite feel like one), you seize any opportunity to attend one that comes your way. So let’s say this was your first one.

Where others take solo trips to exotic locales, you do solo concerts and movies, the life of a single soul.

As you had always liked Ed Sheeran, so it was never question that you would pass an opportunity to see him perform live in concert. And after hearing about it from your sisters who had been for his show in Dubai, you just knew you had to go. But then seeing the ticket price, caused most of your friends to choose to skip it, including your burgers and fries. Nobody wanted to pay so much just to be on your feet for hours under the sun and coping with the Mumbai weather, just to watch Ed play on a screen, as they felt the stage wouldn’t be quite visible for the people with the tickets that was in our budget.

All this didn’t quite justify the price of the ticket for them. To good extent this rationale also seemed valid to you, after all you are always trying to save though you are never been quite successful at it.

But then there’s also the thing like you only live once and you need to make the most when an opportunity presents itself. Besides there are things you need to do for yourself when for the longest time you’ve been paying EMIs or putting things on hold cause somehow you always found yourself having other pressing things.

So now that you could afford to spend on it, you just went ahead purchased the ticket. Prateek Kuhhad being one of the opening act was just the cherry on the cake.

So you find yourself at the venue at 3. Although you planned to reach by 4 but somehow you managed to reach an hour early, and you are grateful you did.

Firstly, there’s a line to get into the venue. And though it did move kind of faster than the Mumbai traffic during peak hours, it did take its time to get you to where you were supposed to be.

And there comes the second reason why you are grateful that you reached the venue early. To your surprise and delight, you find that you have access that’s closest to the stage. This meant that those who brought least expensive tickets were the ones closest to the stage, and could see Ed and the other performers clearly, whereas the ones who shelled out big bucks had to view him from the screens. 

On the hindsight this was good arrangement as the ones around the stage were the actual fans than those hoity toity ones.

All this made you feel glad that you decided to go for the concert.

But now you had quite a long wait before the start of the concert, spending time on your feet under the unobstructed Mumbai sun. 

So you found yourself amongst a sea of youth, mostly of the fairer sex. An uncle in the between all the youth. But then you are ok with it.

Finally at 5, Prateek and his band took to the stage, kicking off the proceeding the song called CO2, a song you hadn’t heard before but hearing it made you want to go and give it a listen on repeat.

It was beautiful. His voice had this beautiful soothing quality that wrapped you up it in its warmth, making you feel all so light hearted and elated like you just had a shot of dopamine.

And then you heard those familiar chords play, and you know you were in for treat as he began singing Kasoor, a song that you not just hear, but you need to feel it, and at the concert you had to hear it.

It felt surreal, it felt something different something beautiful, not just hearing it live but hearing those thousands of people sing it together with him. It was indeed a surreal moment that moved you (cause the song always moved you and left you with this lump in your throat cause of the memory it holds for you). 

You just wanted him to go on and on and never stop cause that moment felt so beautiful and surreal.

He then sang a brand new song that wasn’t released as yet and he was performing it for the very first time. Sadly, it didn’t leave a good impression on you. But then any song following Kasoor would always be eclipsed by the beauty and awesomeness of the later  song. 

How you wish he would sing the song that actually sealed the deal and made you purchase the ticket (even if it was an Ed Sheeran concert). That song was all you needed.

Alas it wasn’t to be so. He introduced his band mentioned that the next one would be the last of his set list. 

This wasn’t fair. He just performed for 30 minutes and he didn’t sing the song that you came here to hear. Yeah, it was the song that got him on the Obama year-end list, it was no All I Need.

So with Cold/Mess he completed his set list, took a bow and exited not quiet stage left ( what would be stage left on a circular stage?), leaving you a little wanting more and bit disappointed with the brevity of his performance and the fact that he didn’t know how to work the circular stage and for the entire performance had his back to half the audience.

Anyway, that’s that, what’s done cannot be undone. You could only hope that Callum Scott could do better than him.

So once again you had to wait as the stage was frantically being set for the next act to come.

At round six Callum’s band takes the stage. You funnily mistake his pianist to be Callum only to realise your mistake when Callum takes the stage dressed in all white, belting out Lighthouse, bringing the crowd alive that probably kind of hit snooze button during the gap between the two act (or maybe the weather and Prateek did it). 

Whatever it maybe, the crowd was once more alive and on their feet, singing along to Callum’s tunes as he belted them on the stage.

Callum, on his part, worked the crowd, effectively using the circular stage to reach each every end, charming the crowd with not just his music but also with his personality, with his heart.

So whether he was singing tunes that had the crowd  dancing along to upbeat songs like “Where are you know”, or then mesmerised like “Heaven” and “Biblical”. And then his attempt at speaking a few words of Hindi like “Shukriya” and “Main aap say bahut pyaar karta ho” was simply charming. And not to forget how much he loved the city, besides its traffic (now who would love the Mumbai traffic, except if you were in Bangalore).

And then he sings “You are the reason” which causes you to melt, and not just by the Mumbai heat. He dedicates to anyone who’s been in love and love in all its form and not just the romantic form.

Seeing the way he got overwhelmed when he heard the crowd sang along with him probably was the highlight of your evening (and you still had Ed Sheeran to come)

He finally ended his with the song that earned him Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer, “Dancing on my own”, seamlessly transitioning into “I want to dance with somebody”. And with that he ended his 40 minutes set list, but in those 40 minutes he won over many hearts (even yours truly), making every minute of those minutes beautiful and count. And he wasn’t even the main act!

So now it was back to waiting for Ed Sheeran to take the stage as the crew quickly and quite effortlessly dismantled the band and got the rotating part of the stage ready, much to yours and those around you delight.

So you once again you had to wait patiently before the main event could start, waiting patiently under the glow of red form the stage and its LED screens, in the Mumbai heat with very little breeze, even though you were close to the sea, a reminder that summer will be soon setting in.

You try to stay hydrated and stay patient, constantly hoping from one foot to another, looking at your watching wondering how long till Ed would take the stage, wondering wouldn’t it be better running outside than standing here on a not so hot night, hoping that it would be worth it. So far only Callum lived up to it and then some more.

You begin to worry if you would soon run out of patient.

7:15 comes and goes and there’s still no sign of Ed. You wonder if he got bitten by the Indian Standard Time, or like Callum he was caught in traffic? 

As if an answer to your question, the screen brings up the timer indicating the minutes to the start of his performance.

By this time crowd were getting a bit restless (who wouldn’t be when you been on your feet for this long in the Mumbai heat). They took to singing songs that were being played over the system, breaking into Blinded by the light by The Weekend. 

They let out a big cheer when the clock came on and began counting down as soon it was 20 seconds to show time.

And at exactly 7:30, Ed took the stage from within the stage, much to the screaming delight of all those there, especially the women. 

You had seen these scenes in countless footage of concerts but it was something else to actually be there in person. At one point you were sure that one of those ladies would throw their bra or panties on the stage.

He effortlessly moved around the stage  thanks to the revolving section, while pyro fireworks and flames went off all around him, giving a feel like your were in a rock concert (cooking those who happened to be close to it).

You anyway are here for the music along with the experience, so you take it all in as part of your concert experience.

You try to figure the song Ed is singing, not because he’s not clear but you don’t know the song. You do like his music and you have  been fan, but you cannot boast that you know or have heard each and every song. But then this doesn’t really matter cause at the end of the day you’re enjoying the music.

You marvel at the fact that he’s on the stage by himself. He doesn’t need a band to accompany him. He doesn’t need any pre-recorded track, so there’s no question of lip-syncing. In fact he creating music on the fly, a musical loop, as he would explain how he would create a loop by layering musical sections over each other, to play in a loop, that would cease to exist at the end of the song (how very Mission Impossible like).

So it’s just him and what looks like a keyboard and his constantly changing guitars. You actually marvel at the fact that after each song his stage help (that’s a terminology for me) comes and give him a new guitar.

What’s amazing is how his energy never dips. He’s like this amazing amazing energiser bunny that goes on and on and on and on without tiring , without boring you (well there were moments where you tried to stifle a yawn, checked your watch, shuffled from one feet to the other, but then you’ll put it down to being one of the senior citizens out there and you needing your sleep). It all made you wonder what was in that drink that he was continuously sipping.

He commanded the stage and enthralled his audience by getting them to sing along (as they even needed a push to do that, in fact the girls next to me knew the lyrics of every song). He even tried to get them harmonise to Gimme Love (a song that you loved and somewhere forgotten that was sung by him) to decent success. 

He shared anecdotes that led to songs like how he wrote Eyes Closed when he lost his friend, or singing one of his earliest singles  in empty bars and Open Mics hoping to be discovered, which initially was a small hit, but when re-released become a hit and got him the recognition that he deserved, leading to A-Team (another song that had made you fall in love with him but somewhere got lost in all his current music).

He had crowd swooning to songs like Tenerife sea, and the wedding first dance staple Perfect and Thinking Out Loud, asking the crowd to put on the torch on their mobile phone creating a surreal moment. You are sure that somewhere in the crowd some guy is proposing to his girlfriend to this song (and as you would learn latter, someone actually did just that).

Listening to these songs made you yearn to share this moment with someone special (and the couples around you didn’t help either as they slow danced to the song culminating into a kiss).

Ed was not always on his own on stage. He got a gorgeous, leggy violinist to join him for Galloway Girl (and God could she high kick and play the violin). 

You also had a couple of Indian artists making cameos. So you had Arman Mallick adding his Indian touch to Two Steps. 

And then you had Diljit Dosanj joined him on stage to perform Diljit’s song, Lover, sending the crowd into a frenzy (as if they needed any reason to do that). So you had a perfect blend of Diljit’s swagger and Ed singing in Punjabi, what more could you want! This amazing performance left the crowd wanting more of this collaboration, and instinctively started chanting for the same. Sadly that wasn’t to be.

For most of the show it was just Ed, his keyboard, the loop machine (a term you coined cause you can’t think of any other name for it), and his ever changing guitar, creating music. However, he did have band when he sang a medley of songs on which he had collaborated with others artists.

So you had a medley of songs from Beautiful People, Let the River Run, South of the Border, Peru, ending it with I Don’t Care (which instinctively had you counting steps in your head).

But that didn’t stop there, he ended it with a song which had written for another artist. So there he was, singing Love Yourself which he had written for Justin Beiber.

Though you are enjoying yourself you start to look at your watch not because you’re bored but because a bit of fatigue is getting to you, and you’re a runner who needs to be in bed to wake up in time for your Sunday long run. Plus you realise that you have been on your feet as long as you took to run the Tata ultra. 

So there you are, the only person in the crowd who’s constantly looking at his , trying hard to stifle a yawn, to very little success.

And then Ed disappears under the stage making you wonder whether this was it. But then this couldn’t be the end, he hadn’t even sung Shape of You yet. 

But then he had thanked people coming from different parts of the country and from different countries. Could this really be it? In which case it would be quite anti-climactic. This couldn’t be it?

And just as you were ready to leave, he appears from beneath the stage in a navy blue kurta with the word Mumbai (in Hindi) on it, to a familiar tune much to your delight and the delight of all gathered there.

Once again the crowd comes alive, and you can’t help yourself but get all caught up in their enthusiasm. You dance and sing and shimmy and do a body roll and wave and do everything you can while standing in place.

Although you were tired and drained by then, you just didn’t want it to end.

But then all good things have to come to an end. 

So after thanking everyone responsible for putting together the concert and for all gathered there, he promised to be back bigger and better. And with that he sang Bad Habits, the last song for the night, brining to close over two and half of nonstop fun. 

So you end a very memorable evening on a flurry of streamers, applauding as ED takes one final bow and disappears beneath the stage.

You slowly make your way through the crowd who are trudging towards the exit, which is quite a long and arduous walk on worn out feet, but walk you must.

But then the soul’s satisfied with the wonderful experience you’ve had  so the feet automatically complies and your heart is filled with the shape of you!!!!

It’s OK

She stood there staring at the vast ocean in front of her. The grey, rough waves seemed to reflect the way she felt on the inside. She wanted to scream and shout, but she held it all within.

Minutes earlier she was at her oncologist’s clinic, who informed the cancer had returned, and  it was back with vengeance. It had spread to other organs. She had just a mere two percent chances of survival.

Her world collapsed when she heard this. She didn’t know how to react, what to do? So she wandered aimlessly around the city, till she came to the promenade where she sat staring vacantly at the sea in front of her. 

As the numbness of the initial shock began to wear off, she began to feel this sharp pain, as if someone had taken a knife and drove it right into her heart. 

She felt frail and weak, not just from the treatment, but also from what she had just learned.

Though she had held it altogether, she could no longer hold it all inside. She buried her face in her hands as the tears began to flow from her eyes.

And then something strange but extraordinary happened. She felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw sweet elderly lady standing behind her. She smiled and hugged her. And then broke into song.

“You with the sad eyes

Don't be discouraged, oh I realize

It's hard to take courage

In a world full of people

You can lose sight of it all

The darkness inside you

Can make you feel so small”

And then another lady lifted her face, and smiled as she sang.

“Show me a smile then

Don't be unhappy

Can't remember when

I last saw you laughing

This world makes you crazy

And you've taken all you can bear

Just call me up

'Cause I will always be there”

And then all the passerby joined to form a whole chorus line of singers and dancers, singing 

“And I see your true colors

Shining through

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

True colors are beautiful

I see your true colors

Shining through (true colors)

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

True colors are beautiful (they're beautiful)

Like a rainbow

Oh oh oh oh oh like a rainbow”

And just like it started, everyone dispersed without saying a word, as if nothing really happened.

Was this a flash mob? She wondered. She tried to see if there was anyone. But no one approached her.

What had she just witnessed? Was it her mind playing a trick on her?

In all her thoughts she realised she felt much more calm. There was a hope that was burning bright within her.

What if she had only a two percent survival chance, two was much bigger than zero.

She had  fought valiantly, and she would continue to fight with all the might she could muster.

She didn’t come so far only to give up!

So what if she was lost, everyone has at some point in their life have been lost too!

She got up and walked, with a renewed determination.

She began humming to herself, and right on cue, a chorus line formed behind her, joining her.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok

If you’re lost

We’re all a little lost and it’s alright

It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok

If you’re lost

We’re all a little lost and it’s alright”

A Little Piano Tale

She rose from her seat and slowly navigated her way through the maze of guests and furniture, towards the place in the room where her piano sat. Her son had requested for some music, as he prepared dinner, and since no one in the room volunteered (or new how to play) on their urging she decided to give it a try, as it had been a while since she had tickled the ivories.

The mood in the room was festive, even though the evening marked the end of the festivities. The room still had its festive decorations on, with soft lights, which only added to the mood in the room. She had worn her festive finery, her festive sweater and her pearls. She felt regal and presided over the the happenings in the room, and so took it upon herself to play something, when her guest urged her to do so.

With the help of her guests, and holding the furniture, she made way to the piano. They helped her to piano, and lifted the lid, and removed the cloth that protected the key. She took a seat and slowly began to play, trying to recollect tunes and their chords, she had learned years ago, from her heydays. She played uncertainly as it had been a while since she played it.

The room fell silent and the only sound to be heard was the one which she conjured up. And even though she fumbled at times, the melody was beautiful and it enamoured all those present in the room. When she finally stopped after a while, they all broke into an applause, but she raised her hands saying she was only practising, just trying to recollect tunes and chords, much to the amusement and delight of her audience. 

She knew she now had a hold on their attention. She smiled and turned back to the piano, and began to play slowly but more surely, her fingers quite nimbly found the keys that played the note and composed the tune. Music filled the room and lifted the spirits of all who it touched, which was everyone present there. It transported them to an era long, long, ago, back in time, to her time. They were spellbound, holding on to every note she played. All their attention were focused on her as they listened to every note that she conjured m up. They knew they were listening to something glorious from someone so delicate and fragile, they wanted to capture that moment for all eternity.

When she finally played the last note, she turned to them and smiled. They took a moment to snap out that they were under, that she had put on them. And when they were finally free from it they burst into applause and cheered on. She smiled and gave a slight bow, to the extent her age allowed her to, returned back to her seat, back to the conversation she was having, mighty pleased with herself.