Rock, Rock, Rocking Season of Summer

Once again in the city was Lucknow, the winds blew harder, strong enough to blow off the tents and the backdrop which read “Samanway – 07” and “PRESTORIKA”. The band Prestorika started off their third performance in city among lots of chaos and “bloopers”. Oh No! The band was not responsible for these.

It was the concluding day of the annual festival of amity Lucknow, ‘Samanway’. Feedback, or the other Feedback or the ‘Lucknow-wala’ Feedback as they may be called was supposed to open for the Delhi based band Prestorika. In an untidy turn of event which was categorized as sound malfunctions and power related problems, Prestorika ended up ‘opening’ for our own commercial sellable band known as Feedback.

Delayed flight, delayed sound setup (lets call it, ‘Incompetency of the Sound system’) and power failure resulted in a delayed show. Prestorika took stage and they were raring to go. The crowd was lovely as Vasav Vashisht, lead vocalist of the band likes to put it, “The crowd was fabulous, atleast those who were there for us”. Seems like quite a diplomatic sentence. Throughout the Prestorika’s performance, the less ‘rock mature’ members of the crowd kept on holding the posters high up which read something like “We want Atif”, “Tere Bin” and many other ‘commercially sellable tracks’.

Others who were too lazy to hold their hands up against the gravity were keen on getting themselves involved in scuffle and brawl with their fellow crowd members and things even went beyond words when a couple of lens men caught a couple making out and that too in the front row. The band kept its calm despite the fact that they have to leave the stage thrice during their unfortunate short performance because of the technical issues of electricity and sound.

The band played some of the brilliant compositions and in the most enchanting manner. The initial start made sure that Prestorika is going to rule the night but then the sound went kaput and so were the lights on stage. The band had to leave the stage for some time then and this happened thrice. “It is difficult and yeah obviously uncomfortable to leave the stage again and again while you are performing but we did our best to make sure that we come back with greater energy and into ‘it’ everytime we left the stage”, claims Nitesh Vasandani, the Prestorika drummer.

With songs like Trooper, Wicker Man, Sweating Bullets and much more, the evening was just a rendition of Iron Maiden and in such an awesome manner. Four out of 10 tracks were by Iron Maiden and Lokesh Bakshi, lead guitarist quips, “The hangover is still on”, referring to the recent Iron Maiden tour of India.

Their set list for the day also compiled songs like Knocking on Heaven’s Door, Enter Sad Man, Fear of the Dark, Don’t Die and their Prestorika originals like Sycopanth, Lost in You and the brand new rocking track, Not My Way. At the end of the show, Vasav admitted, “We wanted to play our tracks like 447, Fuck the Politics and Hoist My Soul because Lucknow loved them the last time but things on stage didn’t allowed us to do so. I guess this city has to wait till we are around for the fourth time”.

People could not get enough but there were some heroes of the day. The first one was the band Prestorika itself for not acting finicky with the sound and light arrangements and did their best to keep the crowd entertained and they succeeded as well. They were seen sweating it out on stage but didn’t give up. Just four of the measly twenty four power cans were put to use and they were all yellow. They left the people spell bound with music.

The second one was Gaurang, officially a class 12th student at La Marts and unofficially the whole and sole of the rock show. He got his reward when the band dedicated one of the songs to him on stage and he innocently claims it to be a big learning experience. The credit also goes to Sidhu (Prestorika Sound Engineer) to give what ever best he could out of the things he was given.

Finally Prestorika winded up their performance and the next band to go on stage was Feedback and what a disappointing performance. Gaining in the advantage of the local home crowd, the band couldn’t even hold the fraction of whatever was left. The performance which seemed lousy at the beginning ended up being even lousier. They played ‘Teri Diwani’ and ‘Ashayen’ after the previous band have covered bands like Iron Maiden and MegaDeth which in turn proved suicidal for Feedback’s performance.
The guitar solos were more like Saxophone solos and the crowd had no idea what they were there for. They kept on encouraging Aditya (Lead vocalist, Feedback) all through out but things weren’t just getting in place. They decided to play their original composition later in the slot and if they would have done that a bit earlier then there would have been a different story at all. The clock struck 10 and it was Aditya’s turn to announce that the time is up.

All in all, it was a good day at work for Prestorika while Feedback failed to make hay while the sun shone. It was an excellent sight when the breeze made its way through the stage while Prestorika ruled the mind and the hearts. Vasav won many a hearts and an equal number of female fan-following. He shyly admits that the most memorable thing of the trip has been the beautiful girls and beer. The band is working on the album which is supposed to be released later this year.

One event is winded up and another one is brewing up. The next band to rule the Nawabi skies is the undisputed God of Indian rock, Yeah! You guessed it right – Parikrama. On being contacted, Subir Malik, Manager and Key boardist of Parikrama said, “We all are excited about playing in Lucknow this time because it’s been 10 years since we have played in this city apart from IIM”. The 27th of April is waiting for another chapter to be added in the history of this rocking city. Hope the crowd gets its rock etiquettes right this time.

for snaps related to these gigs check out -
www.flickr.com/photos/piyush_nift

Writing Credits: Piyush Singh
Editing Credits: Aaishwari Chouhan