Donington Park - Download festival

Black Sabbath

Having been a fan since teenager it took me over 35yrs to finally see these guys live. I wish the weather had been a bit better but I spose this is the charm of open air festivals. Enjoy the pics below.

Video still to be uploaded

Kala Ghoda

I had been wanting to buy the movie about Phoolan Devi after reading the book about her (author: Mala Sen). She was a notorious dacoit in the Uttar Pradesh backwaters that got embroiled in a bitter caste feud that ended in her allegedly killing several men in a village that had violated her. Later she surrendered and was imprisoned for several years, after her release she went into politics and was gunned down in the streets of New Delhi in 2001.

Maharashtra Police headquarters

Kala Ghoda

Army & Navy building

Kala Ghoda residences

The Rhythm House

Kala Ghoda residences

Victoria train station (actually not in Kala Ghoda anymore)

Anyway, I was advised by Sunil that the place to go was the Rhythm House in Kala Ghoda to find the movie, if anyone would stock it, they would. As it was close to the Gateway of India we went by foot and I was surprised that after such a long time I had not discovered this area in Mumbai, and it was so close too. Sunil explained that most building are Owned by wealthy Parsis that are very successful business people.

Once in Rhythm House I asked for the movie and got it in no-time. The shop was stocked up to the rafters with music, movies from every genre and every format.

Blue Frog and Indus Creed

One morning Nik and I was perusing the Times of India entertainment section and he discovered an ad for Indus Creed performing at Blue Frog. He got all excited and claimed they were the best rock band in India and so we decided to go see them.

Mumbai by night

Came Friday and me, Nik and Anil headed out to paint the town blue or whatever color. At first we went to Gokul’s for some feed and a few drinks and then we caught a taxi to Blue Frog, of course we got a quart of and some sada paan to keep us content for the ride.

Blue Frog is situated in the cotton mill area of Mumbai that saw big upheavals in the 90’s as lot of people lost their jobs and property speculators bought up factory plots to redevelop them into high end night clubs et al.

Blue frog turned out to be a small club with round booths to seat 8-10 persons. Nice design but nobody took into account that if one person in the other end of the circle had a nature call, all other people had to get up to let him pass, there was no space to get up and go behind the seats.

We studied the menu and could not even find Kingfisher on it, and considered Budweiser an insult to our tastebuds, so we settled for Old Monk, the only Indian product on the menu. We ordered in some Indian appetizers for exorbitant prices and got some odd continental Indian fusion of stuff, nevermind, we ate it with gusto and washed it down with Old Monk.

The warm up duo

Then a couple appeared to perform some jazzy number, the guy was playing the guitar and the beauty was singing. Once they were done the audience had not warmed much up at all in my opinion but our spirit was soaring high in anticipation of Indus Creed.

Soon enough they appeared and opened up with a nice rock ensemble. As it was we stood next to the mixing table and could see the whole playlist. The staff told us not to use the flash so I recorded the songs Nik wanted. At one stage they brought in a troupe of violinist and performed a really nice song called the “Fly”.

The "bad: Trio

At some stage I ran out of batteries and the night descended into a foggy memory due to the Old Monk and next thing I knew we were on our way to Gateway and realized we had missed the last tender. Luckily enough we saw at Gateway the tender of m/y Ashena and asked the boys to do us a favor and bring us onboard, they were happy enough to oblige as our ship was on the way to theirs..

Ekachai Srivichai concert

On the 7th Jira took me to see Ekachai Srivichai, a local talent from southern Thailand. He has been a staple "luk thung" artist for years in the Kingdom.

The entry ticket

I was rather surprised as the show started with historical references and the whole evening played out like an Indian movie with stories taken from the Thai history as well as one story from Korea and then followed by song and dance, Bollywood style but with the Thai touch. Of course the stage was filled with gorgeous dance girls and some boys too, otherwise it would not be a show at all in Thailand.

Ekachai on stage

In between there was a few visiting artists, a quartet from the north whose singing talent faded compared to Ekachai's strong baritone. Then of course followed the mandatory Thai slapstick stand up comedy which I even managed to follow at places.

The visiting northern boys in a rather gay costume

At last followed a potpourri of popular songs including the parody of "Chang Si Dong Thorn".

The dance girls

The whole affair lasted for abt 4 hours, not bad considering ticket price was 200 THB/ person. In the end heavy sponsorship was showing up as the sponsors products were paraded on stage and songs sung to them. At the exit more business was touted to buy these products...

All proceeds from the concert went to the school where the whole event had been hosted on. Even at this remote area police security was very visible. And as per Thai style the volume was cranked up to the max during the whole time so my ears were still ringing while writing this.

Below is one song that made Ekachai famous in his early years "Mae du Mia daa" (Mom, look, my wife's cursing me).



Here is another popular song that is parodized by Ekachai "Chang si dong thorn" (Lao hangover song), not sung by Ekachai himself here.