Wednesday, September 22, 2010

first big concert!

GREEK’s FIRST NORTH EAST TOUR
Adam Avil
Eddie Avil
Victor Dsouza (Isa)
Joy Datta Gupta
Ulysses Veyra
Hermito Fernandes (Manager)


This was in 1994 if I’m right…our first gig was scheduled in Imphal capital of Manipur, organized through our friend Dhojo and the local promoters…the journey in train through the dadar/guhwati (3 days journey) in a general compartment was nightmarish…..surviving that can take you far in life…..it was complete suffocation. Over crowded boogie with dangerous silent fart bombs which would come from all nook and corner including ours would burn the hair in our nostrils.......

After reaching guhwati we were taken to our hotel rooms …while driving in the hot aftternoon, our guide showed us this big banner in the middle of the streets saying Bombay’s NO 1 Band GREEK playing in the football ground, (don’t remember the name) I thought cool, sounds good, felt proud from within.

Showtime
We were taken to the ground from the back, local band was playing, I could see the crowd in front of the big stage, the moment we went on stage I could see a sea of people in the far distance …it was the biggest crowd I’ve seen in my life……we were all puppies then….all I remember was our keyboardist joy made them very loud by screaming bad language……we started with "Break in the law" by Judas Priest and the ground was
on fire. It was a soldout show as I felt the entire city had come for the show. After a few originals we lost our power to enthrall the heated crowd. We had run out of songs for a full length concert show and didn’t have the power to face the aggressive crowd. Eddie decided to do a very slow number with Victor on stage, wherein I and the rest of the guys quietly sneaked of the stage…accepting defeat! As stones started coming on stage….it was an act to protect our heads.

Eddie and victor had to follow soon calling it curtains……organizers had to put the local band on to take care of business, but more so the angry crowd. We had to quietly sneak off from the back towards the road in our cars…..some teenagers saw us and followed us to beat us….we ran to our cars and drove off….but Imphal is a violent city in itself with the insurgences and stuff….angry crowd followed us to the hotel. We had to run
and get into our rooms. …all sacred to save ourselves. We could hear that the crowd was down and screaming "Go back to Bombay..Fuckers!". I thought they would come and break the hotel room door and beat us…..luckily that didn’t happen. I had a house visit next morning and could see the locals looking at me but were cool. The organizers made a killing business.We had to move to another town near the border of burma….the organizers took us to this shed were this painter had painted a giant picture of us…..big as movie posters which hang outside the movie theaters. Looking at the massive image of me and the boys did make me happy and back on feet. The next gig was in a packed auditorium, could see lots of pretty girls as well…..The show was killing, fans wanted autographs, our t shirts and wouldn’t leave us ……..
From then on songs like heart on fire, destiny, awakening and cyanide were sung in front rows …..Awesome!. Bombs exploded in a auditorium in guhwati….the music was flowing, fans were chasing us, bonding, brotherhood etc…….
On our way back there was a fight between joy and Ulysses on money matters, but we survived the beatings from NE crowd as we had survived the over crowded boogie.

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Lejaa from the film JANGO