Black Current

Black Current - Blind Image and Apocrypha live at Edge, Manipal, 28th September '08.



One of the funnest events we ever organized, mainly because of all the problems we had. We were broke and it was a metal band. In the end, we didn't sell enough tickets, but the point is those who came had fun and Manipal's first mosh pit was born.

The day began with Shyam and me taking the cab to Mangalore to Tomato aka Prashant, the guitarist's house to pick up Blind Image. Prashant's mom is a principal at a hotel management college, therefore the cheese toast we were invited to was kickass. Thank you aunty! Luckily, there were no sleep issues, because it was 10 in the morning. So we talked the journey, David, the vocalist was entertaining everyone with stories about other gigs and crazy friends with accents. We dropped the band at home, quickly got ready and hit the venue. Sound guy was late as usual. But the bands were on time. And as promised we were ready at 6. But there were hardly 20 people, so we did the math and started 20 minutes later! Apocrypha was up first, they played mostly covers. This was our fault, we informed them they'd be playing late thanks to some fickle minded Mangy band!

Apocrypha has a female vocalist, Suchetna. Now this was enough to make some noise! The guitarist broke a string at the first song, but pulled it together when Blind Image lended them a guitar. Potential, describing Apocrypha in one word - Metallica, RATM, Dio and It - in four. Blind Image were up next. They played kickass metal. The concert was to mark the release of their album Psychobabble in Manipal. The album is available with me for just 50 bucks, so if you're interested let me know.

Blind Image did play too many covers, obviously, the crowd liked it. But it was one eventful concert. Manipal's first moshpit happened. And it was the first time I was so thrilled to see violence! I could only hear 'Lamb of God' chants from crowd and honestly did not know there were that many Lamb of God fans. Crowd control was a constant worry. I kept walking in and out of the stage to keep a watch on stamps, we were terribly understaffed. They played Duality for encore and I confirmed later that there were no vocals on that one. But there was a wall of death leading someone to throw a now team member on to the vocalist, who tore his lip when the mic hit him.

But they had fun! And the afterparty was in their tam words 'WATHAAAA'.. We jammed till 4 in the morning when it was time to say another goodbye. At the end of the day, we didn't cover costs and were in debt. But thanks to the really understanding people we work with, the journey continues. And while ours is a neverending one as long as the juniors carry on the legacy, for some journeys ended in Manipal...