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| Indian Ocean Concert: Monday August 21, 2006 |
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| Reviews |
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Indian Ocean transfixes Seattle audience |
Monday, August 14, 2006
By SHAWN TELFORD
SPECIAL TO THE P-I |
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| It was like a dream. I was Columbus looking for the East Indies. And I thought I had found it. But I was still in Seattle. Yet, there I was, fair-skinned, blue-eyed musical explorer surrounded by brown-eyed East Indians, the smell of Stargazer and Casablanca lilies wafting through the air titillating the nose with their sweetness while the ears were transfixed by the sounds of Indian Ocean. |
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| I rubbed my eyes and popped my ears. |
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The Ocean that I speak of was not the world's third largest body of water; it was a band from New Delhi who for 16 years has been fusing Indian folk, jazz and rock into one copasetic oeuvre that sounds at once familiar and yet completely new.
The four members have found cult status in their native India while remaining relatively unknown outside the sub-continent. For instance, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible to find any of their five albums in the US, unless you were to have caught one of their four previous coast-to-coast tours. Yet, despite these appearances over the years, Indian Ocean has never played Seattle. |
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| Until Friday night. |
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| The concert felt like a homecoming, as if these four kings were returning from their world conquest to their rightful home. The room became a court and the fans were devout subjects, singing along and dancing fervently through the entire two and a half hour show. Nevermind that Indian Ocean cull their lyrics from a variety of languages, their fans sing along, harmonizing in Hindi, Kashmiri, Bengali, Sanskrit and even Aramaic, one of the languages Jesus spoke. In fact, the song "Kandisa" is based on an ancient Syrian Catholic hymn and translated literally means "grace." To know grace is one thing, but to feel its presence during that moment of unity between the band and the fans, when the room feels the rhythm and the melody emerges from everyone, singing the sound of suffering, of plight, of longing, this is the oneness, the magic, the grace of music. |
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| It was one of several moments Friday night at Neumos. |
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Perhaps it's also due to the mastery in which the band command their traditional and contemporary instruments. For example, Sushmit Sen plays a mysterious "invisible" guitar with only a neck, a pickup and strings. The instrument has no body so there's no feedback and Sen tunes it one note lower, running it directly into his amp with no pedals or effects. He then plays it as if it were a sitar producing a clean and tinny East Indian version of the blues.
The driving force behind the band, however, is the synergy of the rhythm section which melds the groove of bassist Rahul Ram with the dual drumming of Amit Kilam on a standard drum kit and Asheem Chakravarty on tablas and various percussive instruments. This union provides the base and mobility so that the vocals can soar up and away toward heaven or at the very least, the stars.
This is the power of Indian Ocean, a band with the strength of that great body of water from whence they take their namesake.
As if it wasn't enough just to see the band play live, the show was also a benefit for CRY (Child Relief and You) a non-profit focused on restoring basic rights to disadvantaged children in the US and India. The organization defines "basic rights" as the right to survival, the right to development, the right to protection and the right to participation.
In the end, it wasn't a new world that I -- the Columbus dreamer -- had found; it was another part of this world, a part I hadn't seen before. It gave new weight to the maxim: "Never stop exploring." |
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| When it comes to living, that's just good advice. |
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