My thanks to Jamie for the opportunity of reviewing this show for http://concertaddicts.ca.
I’d never seen the Commodore look festive before: the lights and decorations around the pillars on the long sides of the dance
floor and garlands strung along the railings made for a really nice atmosphere.
The room was comfortably warm and every available seat was taken. The balcony
was not open that evening, and as the house right staircase to it was where I
chose to 'park', I had the pleasure of advising patrons of this fact over
and over again.
At 9:30 Portland’s DJ Anjali came on stage
to start her set and there were perhaps 60 people gathered in front of the
stage and more trickled onto the dance floor as it progressed. I have to say,
the DJ experience is an unfamiliar one for me. For the first 25 minutes I felt
like I was watching a music fan dance to the music they like to listen to. Is
that what DJing is? Seriously, is it? She did no effects or distortions or
anything, she just played one song after another. I will say this for her, and
this is an observation, not a critique: Anjali had more energy than the music
she was playing, or maybe that is the style.
At about 5 minutes to 10 another DJ takes
over (at the end he is introduced as “The Incredible Kid”) and then it becomes
more of a show because Anjali then takes left of centre stage and begins to
dance for real for about 15 minutes. Then she goes off-stage for 15 minutes and
I’m watching a dude head bang and flip through his CD collection. The dance
floor is about ¾ full by this point, so I do think it’s me. Anjali comes back
briefly, to confer with her colleague and to grab her purse, and comes back to
dance during the last song which ends an hour of cool music. She has great
energy and has a lot of fun dancing – she obviously enjoys what she does, I’m
just not sure I enjoy it as much.
As a bit of a backgrounder, I had become
interested in Delhi 2 Dublin’s music during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics when there was
such great buzz surrounding them (even the guys from the Ethiopian delegation I
was volunteering with saw them perform and loved them) and since then this “little band
from Vancouver BC” continued touring and making music and this is the first
time I got to hear them again.
Delhi 2 Dublin begins at quarter to 11 with
4 band members drumming and an electric sitar. As the name would suggest they
are a multi-cultural group, one would expect an East Indian contingent from the
Delhi side, a European one from the Dublin side, the surprise was the rocking
Korean guy on electric sitar and electric guitar in the utili-kilt! Nicely
played, I’d say. I also think calling them ‘multi-cultural’ does them a bit of
an injustice – it’s a pigeon-hole into a category, and personally, I’d prefer
to see this as an example of what ‘normal’ looks and sounds like. It’s
reflective of the population in ethnicity and musical taste so why can’t the
same go for music production? I’d love to hear this band on mainstream radio.
The first several songs were in what I
presume is Punjabi (but what do I know?), then they went bilingual, then spent
some time in English, and just generally mixed it up a lot, I even heard
Spanish. It gives me some pause for thought – at the end of the day lyrics are
‘just’ words to the beat and/or melody, and does it really matter what language
they’re in? I’d argue no. You either feel a connection to it or you don’t, kind
of like the people who play Green Day’s “Good Riddance” as a wedding song
because they like the line about having
the time of one’s life, despite the “I hope it was worth it” tone of the song.
Enough digression, I really liked this
show. Everyone is multi-instrumental – we start the show with 4 drummers and
the electric sitar, and then one of the tabla drummers morphs into the MC
taking care of the electronics (Tarun), one tabla drummer is the fiddler (Sara),
the other two stay put as they’re the drum kit (Dave) and the dhol drummer
(Ravi). Frontman and singer Sanjay also takes a turn on tabla later on in the
show. They have elements of coordinated choreography, which when you’re playing
an instrument at the same time cannot be easy, but it works really well for
them. They have a lot of fun on stage – the fiddle/guitar-off is playful and
they can also play ‘proper’ rock (si-/guitarist Andrew crowd surfs when D2D do
Fat Boy Slim’s Praise You and it gave the crowd an opportunity to sing as
well). Sara takes a turn at a vocal solo song with the traditional She Moved
Through the Fair accompanied only by the electric guitar which supports her
mostly in the song’s mood, underscoring her strong voice and excellent control.
Even when she sings softly, nothing happens by chance. For Love is the Hero,
it’s like she’s channelling Dolores O’Riordan a bit.
When it’s 4 drums and the fiddle it sounds
incredibly cool. The channel the fiddle was on was sadly inconsistent, so that
could’ve been better because if not from the electronics, many times that’s
where the melody comes from. There was
full crowd participation for the last song Turn up the Stereo and the tables
had emptied long, long before. Delhi 2 Dublin’s set was done after about 90
minutes of playing non-stop (maybe 17 songs or so) and they didn’t make the
audience wait long before coming back for a three-song encore which included a
special introduction to Dave, the drummer from Brooklyn, who is featured with a
drum solo.
This band seriously impressed me. They show
an awareness of the issues Canada is facing, among them food safety, knowing
where your food comes from and if it was ‘engineered’ – whatever people’s
opinions are about it, and the importance of inner balance to life in general.
There is really good positive energy from every member of this band and lots of
it. I respect that they also put their money where their collective mouth is:
$2 from the sale of their CD “Turn up the Stereo” on sale for $5 went in
support of UBC Farm. Sanjay gave it the motto “good beats and good eats”. He is
a very good frontman for the band – and with those amazing arms (remember, I
was at the back of the room), it’s hard to take your eyes off him. Nice voice
too - as polished as you’d hear from an overproduced R&B group – except
that it’s just as smooth and polished live as it is on CD (yes, I bought one).
Also visible from the back of the room was the smile on Ravi’s face – from
start to finish, this guy grinned and drummed his little heart out.
This was a sort of homecoming for Delhi 2
Dublin – it’s the last show of the tour, the last show of the tour, and there
was nothing but heartfelt gratitude and appreciation emanating from Sanjay and
Tarun as they shared that with the audience. All’s I can say is “welcome home”.
See you again – in the meantime, I’ll be spending some time with the band’s
back catalogue and hope to be somewhere in the thick of it when they perform next.
Image from the band's website at http://www.delhi2dublin.com/bio
Photos from the show by Jamie Taylor can be found here.
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