Bangalore is about to have one of it’s largest live concerts ever, courtesy of aging 1970s rockers Deep Purple.
Who are/were Deep Purple? For our readers who like to listen to music originally recorded in their lifetime, Deep Purple were part of the the holy Trinity that founded Heavy Metal, along with Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath.
Their biggest hit was probably “Smoke on the Water” which reached #4 on the Billboard charts in 1972, and which is “#426 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. If you’ve got a friend learning to play electric guitar, you’ve probably heard him or her attempt to play it, along with Stairway to Heaven.
It is commonly the first song learned by many beginner guitarists, it’s also noted for it’s extreme difficulty. However, it’s main recognisable riff is not difficult and consequently is constantly played by learners.
In fact, it’s so popular, that one famous guitar store in Denmark Street, London, used to sport a sign on the wall reading ‘If auditioning a guitar, please refrain from playing Smoke on the Water, as this is causing our staff mental torture’… [Link]
Events like this contribute to this peculiar retro-quality that parts of Indian culture have. I suppose it’s good that Indians still appreciate the retro given that they’re still receiving visits from bands whose biggest hits were over 30 years ago. Heck, Deep Purple first broke up in 1976.
Bangalore is the only Asian stop on the reconstituted band’s tour. The group will fly in from South America to play one night in India before flying on to Europe, so in some ways it’s a big deal.
But (and I’m wrinking my nose here) … don’t you think that India should be receiving more up to date acts now? I know that tickets are expensive for the average Indian, but Bangalore should have more than enough young employees of multinationals that they’re willing to pay something close to international prices for a ticket. Why is it that, despite India Rising and all that, that India attracts only 3rd string western bands on international tour? I’m sure I’m missing something.
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Some classic Deep Purple:
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And a more recent incarnation of the band playing Smoke on the Water:
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Re: risible @ 44
While S. Kapoor is (maybe?) dead, I think Bollywood does booming business here in the videsh with its ministrel circuit – posters advertising shows of Aishwarya Rai and Hirtik Roshan lip-syncing and dancing, for example, greet me regularly when I dine at a desi restaurant. Of course, A.R. Rahman took this peddling a level higher with his musical “Bombay Dreams”. As for Indian classical arts – yes, they are much stronger, both teaching and performance-wise, here in the US than in India, mainly because desis in the US can afford to send their kids to learn Bharatnatyam or the tabla from the many excellent teachers and artists who have migrated here, following the money. I think T.S. Eliot summed this up best (I quote from memory): “Art can only flourish in the dungheap of cash”.
I was reacting to the description of DP as one of the biggest concerts to come through.
Please enlighten us — I couldn’t find anything online. Which bands came through?
Deep Purple-influenced Desi rock
Dont know if DP influenced them, but do check out the pakistani band Junoon ( which had a HUGE hit in India called “Sayonee”) They count Led Zepellin as one of their influences.
“And I refuse to believe exoticize is always a dirty word.”
i agree.
interesting comment from a 14-year-old Mexican girl on being asked what matters to her most as a teenager (BBC):
I would love to know how (if at all) the young, westernised, English-speaking Pakistani youth experience of the 60s to 80s, growing up in Karachi or Lahore, differed from the equivalent Indian counterpart experience in Mumbai/Delhi. I think as a % of population, that elite demographic is much smaller in Pakistan. And the surrounding indigenous desi cultures are quite different in many ways.
If Deep Purple is relic of 80s, then Mithun Chakroborthy/Shammi Kapoor banner toting SepiaMutiny is…?
Or is “retro is cool” domain of only “South Asians” and not applicable to us in India?
What rubbish! Unless Amitabh intended the above to be listed in steeply ascending order of importance 🙂 Has it occurred to anybody that, perhaps, there is just something eerily but universally appealing about certain rock anthems; and that Deep Purple or Floyd simply composed more than their fair share of anthems ? Oh, and PS: India isn’t the only country that’s “retro” in it’s rock tastes. E.g. “The Police” is crazily popular in Norway. So much so that a buttoned-up affair like the presentation of the Abel Prize (the so-called math Nobel) this summer featured “Message in a Bottle” by an avant-garde trio led by Kjos Sorensen…
“Why is it that, despite India Rising and all that, that India attracts only 3rd string western bands on international tour? IÂ’m sure IÂ’m missing something.”
You are missing a lot of things, obviously. One of the things is knowledge of the bands, which have toured India over the last decade, starting with The Boss in the late eighties.
Risible, As someone who grew up next to a Bollywood studio, I find ABDs fixating over shite B’wood films quite amusing. Things from a distance and all that.
Ennis, Some Mumbai info. Don’t know about B’lore. Police played at Rang Bhavan back in the days. And MJ in 90s.
Whoa!
Springsteen was (is?) popular in India?
Haha, don’t say that to Ryan Adams or suffer!
This is funny, because whenever I visit my cousins (in Punjab), NO ONE listens to hard rockers. I actually feel really stupid trying to explain why I think Led Zeppelin are musically genius. I feel like I’m much more likely to hear UK-born desi artists or mixes on their stereos and at their parties. Maybe this is just my family, or maybe it’s an age gap?
Hey, it didn’t stop Pitchfork 😉
Fine, give us a list then. The Boss — who else? I know Sting performed in Bangalore (and perhaps elsewhere) in ’04, but how many other shows like that are there? In the end, if western bands are what you want to see, you have far better access in, say, Raleigh, NC, than you do in Mumbai or Bangalore — and it isn’t even close. I think Ennis’s original question is a good one, and I think the answer has to do with what Sriram discussed in #4.
Thanks, MD. I think it’s hilarious that DP gets 7 times as many comments as bad sex, when I figured it would be the other way around. Maybe the post on bad sex was too … chaste 😉 I did clean it up before I posted.
Re: neale @ 60
Yup! The Boss did brisk business in the desh; I have friends who gave his “Born to Run” as birthday gifts.
Every desi boy (NOT GIRL) I know from India who is 30+ is sooooo into Pink Floyd, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath more so than The Who & Rolling Stones. I don’t get it. I like some of their popular stuff but the cultish following I don’t get.
The most retro I go (and LOVE) is Def Leppard, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Aerosmith then it’s all 80s for me…Chicago, Hall & Oates, Police, Foreigner, Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Michael Jackson, Joan Jett, Queen, Wham, Culture Club, Phil Collins, Mellencamp etc. The 1990s never registered and now I listen to Sexy Back! Go figure.
I sang Borderline (Madonna) at Karaoke this weekend for a 27 year old’s birthday and she has NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE. #$$%^^$##@$&)(+*(
I grew up in Bangalore. Then became a FOB in late-nineties, attending grad school, then staying over for a job, green card etc etc.
One of my pet-peeves was that most folks in the desi grad school community were appalled that I had only a very very superficial interest in Bollywood. I tried a few times to explain that I wasn’t abandoning the cultural mothership after coming to the US, I was never too into Hindi cinema. Another pet-peeve was that every North-Indian grad student would assume that I could speak Hindi.
By the way, friends of mine play on Thermal and a Quarter, who have made quite a habit of opening for these big visiting bands. They opened for Deep Purple and Jethro Tull recently.
Amit, why not bring on the information instead of the snark? Clearly there is no central repository of this information, or if there was, I couldn’t find anything.
Again, I was working off the fact that the Deep Purple concert is being billed one of the largest ever in Bangalore, which surprised me given Bangalore’s relative wealth and westernization. That’s a band over 30 years old performing a huge concert in a city which, per capita, is probably one of India’s wealthiest and youngest.
Sure, I remember MJ’s concert, but that’s more of an example of a musical has-been (he was totally washed up at that point) than a big star.
Police and the Boss are useful counter-examples though.
What other big groups / performers?
this must be some Ennis-nomics measure/benchmark. i.e, a nations economic progress measured by the quality of the rock bands touring its cities.
30-40 something desis w/ and their love for Dylan. Anybody got that? I resisted him for a long time for all the “Hey man you NEED to check this out” business.
Neal, re: Boss. My clollege friends used to do a funny Punjabi version of My hometown, called “Sadda Pind”.
There was time way back in my childhood when I used to think there are only two big rock stars in the US: MJ and the Boss. Sort of like Mohd. Rafi and Kishore Kumar 😉 .
This probably makes your point, Ennis. I remember my uncle getting real excited about Osibisa visiting India in ’81/’82 – a good 10 years after their popularity peaked.
this isn’t the first time that they’ve performed in india. they were one of the first few western acts to come to india around the late-80s/early-90s, including europe (remember ‘final countdown’?), bryan adams and last, but not least, the bootleg beatles – a (not so bad) beatles cover band.
i went for the deep purple concert at the andheri sports complex in ’93 (i think) and yes, i sang ‘smoke on the water’ word for word. what can i say? i’m old…
As for the ABD/Western India focus on Bollywood, I think there’s a supply and demand effect going on here. I can go into any number of Desi-owned shops and pick up the latest Bollywood hit (if only on badly pirated VHS). But that, uhm, “distribution system” barely exists for Indian artistic film. I’ve only seen Satyajit Ray’s films at two very high-end video rental places in Chicago, and just forget it when it comes to lesser-known art films. Even Netflix shafts non-Bollywood Indian film.
So if you’re trying to connect with your heritage and culture through this medium, Bollywood is the easiest and cheapest way to do it.
Neale (#62), touche. But how can you argue with Pitchfork? 😉
My friend Neha (a 1.5 gen’er) and I talk about this a lot because of the contradictions and arguments on authenticity that seem to come about in college among the ABDs. We found it funny that “really involved” ABDs – usually those who were trying to “find their culture” in college – would look to Bollywood as a beacon of “authentic” cultural Indian-ness, or whatnot. We thought this was totally bizarre since a lot of Bollywood films appropriate or borrow from Western film, pop culture, dance, etc. I don’t say this to undermine the film industry – there are a lot of organic, awesome/beautiful films coming out of north India, but there’s definitely a feedback loop. But, on the same note, I also think ABDs assume that India/Indians are much more culturally conservative, which I also think is off.
For other concerts in India, See Rolling Stones in India, No Doubt In India, Def Leppard in India, Jethro Tull in India
As someone else noted above lesser bands travelling to India is more to do with economics than anything else. As for Led Zeppling, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple etc being popular in India is probably becuase of the same reason they are popoular with a certain sect of people world over; people like the music and it is their individual preference.
As brown in comment #. 76 pointed out the some heavy hitters are starting to give concerts in India. Just economics.
I read that Mumbai is soon becoming one of the venues for international tours. Beijing too but then you cannot sing all the songs there.
This is because the Indian-born Indians we know best are usually our parents. 😉
btw, I know there is another poster here called Neale. I am “Neal”, no “e”. I didn’t realize the other one existed when I started going by my name here — I would have come up with some other clever name if I had. But I don’t want to, like, “steal his thunder” or whatever. So just FYI.
Ennis, My examples were more of a related trivia thing. If anything they prove your point. MJ was a wash-up (the surrounding hype made for an interesting read). The Police show was at tiny open-air auditorium. And don’t even get me started on Yanni defiling Taj.
The Boss / Tracy Chapman was probably the first big-name show in India. It was a United Nations sponsored show, I think. It did not stop cosponsors TOI from trying to take credit. It coincided w/ their 150th anniversary. Springsteen was quite irritated and said, “We did not come for anybody’s birthday party”.
I heard last year Mark Knopfler (lead singer from Dire Straits and guitarist extraordinaire) and the Rolling Stones stopped by in Bangalore. Still very retro though; both concerts were a huge success. Another big concert was one by Roger Waters in 2001, who was in Pink Floyd before they split up. In Bangalore, especially, it’s cool to be acquainted with classic rock, people that haven’t heard of Floyd or Led Zep frequently get dissed for not being ‘with it’! These people seem to eschew pop music, it’s thought of as just being manufactured music, no one ever cut their fingers on the guitar strings and abused drugs while trying to write a song. And like earlier comments said, the cycle continues from seniors to juniors in college every year.
Also, as ex-Banglorean mentioned above Mark Knopfler and Elton John concerts in India.
Its cool that these old boys can have some fun back in Bangalore.
I was blissfully ignorant of all things west while growing up and I am still picking up the pieces. When I asked a guy (who came to US same time as me) for a good band, he gave me two CDS.
Apparently, one of his friend professed his love to a girl while some GM’s song, BLECH!
There is a lot of self-selection going on here. DP, LZ, PF, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix etc are very peculiar to college hostels, especially engineering college hostels in India. I think the mainstream city folks listen to whatever’s playing on MTV or V.
Even within engineering college hostels, classic rock is a genre that is listen to by the same folks who read Wodehouse, Sartre, Tolkein and Ayn Rand. This crowd does not listen to classic rock for its great music alone; they also make up terrific trivia questions on rock arcana (which group was name after Pete De Rose’s song since it was the favorite of the lead guitarist’s grandmother? Ans: Deep Purple OR Which band was named after the dildo featured in William Burroughs’ ‘The Naked Lunch’? Ans: Steely Dan, references to Tolkein in Led Zeppelin’s works, references to Rand in Rush’s music, and so on). Ever so slowly, this crowd gets older – into their 30s and 40s – and then they add jazz to their collection. But never disco, never pop, never country. This crowd will pprobably beat you up if you even mention hip-hop. They’re the same with Hindi Film Music. They genuinely believe that Hindi film music died around 1965 (maybe 1972-3) if they are in a generous mood).
These gentlemen (mostly men), comprise India’s greatest generation. bows. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Oh man, I totally want to hear an Indian cover of Rush!
..that is listened to.. (and other typos). I am keyboard dyslexic.
Neal,
Go ahead! We French do not hold thunder in much regards in winter .
Ennis,
Btw, India’s band ‘Thermal and a Quarter‘ (for 3 mallus and one one-quarter mallu) were one of the first bands to put mp3s of their music on their site for free. Yes, they are from Bangalore.
It’s not the same kind of music. Pink Floyd, Doors, Led Zep and Sabbath were more experimental and ended up trailblazing their own genres, hence the cultish followings. The Who and the Stones were mainstream hard rockers that pretty much everybody liked at some point. I think musically, the most impressive of all the above are Pink Floyd, Led Zep and The Who. As for Deep Purple, I don’t think they fit into either category.
Well, SexyBack is popular at the moment, so the fact that they play it in Mumbai/Delhi/Calcutta is simply a sign that what is popular the world over is popular in India as well. No surprise.
Also, FWIW, I like SexyBack (which only barely qualifes as “hip-hop,” btw). Not a classic by any stretch, but it gets me energized and gets my toes tapping. And the song evokes Prince, who I believe was a musical genius.
Roadhouse Blues. Period.
Yep, true. I think there’s also a sort of pattern, where some engg. colleges lean towards one set of bands, while others towards another. PF, overall, may dominate though. It is all very weird and cultish, and there is also some amount of peer pressure involved. I personally preferred singer-songwriters such as Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Kristofferson, etc, in college, and I am proud I could stick to my musical tastes despite all the PF-evangelicals around me.
And Amitabh (#8), I see your point about how many people do it just to feel cool or different. I knew guys in college who had never heard anything except Bollywood before coming in, and were converted to hard metal in three months. I just don’t think anyone can actually cover the distance so fast. But then it is college, what do you expect.
Sashi:
He’s very much alive!!
I guess everybody is entitled to their own taste in music. And BTW, Pink Floyd is really popular in India.
As for Indians in India going more for retro in Western Music, the same goes for Hindi movie music too-a lot of people prefering 60s and 70s music to current songs. But as i said choice of music is certainly very personal. Nothing wrong in that.
Also i guess A.R.Rehman’s Bombay Dreams thing didn’t give him a giant leap-he was already iconic in India long before that!
SkpeMod: Thanks for mentioning Thermal and a Quarter (their name means :three mallus and a quarter-as they mentioned in one of their concerts).
This brings back fond memories of my college days in Texas when we put together a band for the india student association talent show. I happened to meet an IIT grad who was in the States for his grad work who also happened play bass and guitar. When i told him we were thinking of doing a few covers (I had picked REM, VU, and a couple of other bands) he was all about Tull and Clapton. He said IIT Bangalore had several bands doing classic rock.
I forgot to mention that he played with us and did a version of “Wild World” (Cat Stevens) with a slight Tamilian accent…man, I’d never seen that many ABCD chicks swooning over an IIT grad…
J.Mehta “IIT Bangalore”
There is no IIT in Bangalore, there is Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
Delhi, Chennai, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Powai (near Mumbai), Guwahati and Roorkee (earstwhile Roorkee University) have IITs.
Isn’t Bon Jovi really big in India? Also, I know in the 80s Amnesty Int’l did a couple of tours in India. I know in 84 or 85, some of my relatives saw a show in Delhi w/ The Police, U2, and Peter Gabriel ON THE SAME BILL!!!!!! That must of been a great night. Alas, I was but 8 or 9 years old.
My bad – hmmm, then i don’t know which one he was at. He was definitely an IIT grad…
India = Vegas.
They were 10 years ago. As was Firehouse. And Samantha Fox.
Quizman (#83):
How true, and i seconded that in my comment #92-am glad you too highlight this. In my opinion, there is still some good Hindi film music being made. but as you know, its very easy to dismiss what people of your own generation do :)).
Sakshi:
Thats indeed too fast-though, may be those guys never had a chance to listen to the stuff before and once they listened, they enjoyed and got hooked on. While its true that peer pressure does get on the nerves in college-music is something where its very difficult to force stuff that you don’t like upon you (thats just my opinion-others may disagree). I am glad you have remained loyal to your choice in music.