April 24, 2014: ennui.BOMB’s fortnightly music event BOMB Thursdays has found a new venue in Khar’s 3 Wise Monkeys, and the line up for this particular gig consisted of punk rockers Doctor Zebra and post rockers A Mutual Question from Pune along with alternative electronic act Killer Fan from Mumbai. The setup for the gig, with tables and patrons eating right in front of the stage, with pretty much no standing room was one that was pretty awkward for a gig, but more on that later.
Doctor Zebra were the first band on stage and the three piece punk rock outfit played a set that was very much that sound punk has associated with as a genre on a whole. The band stated that they are the first punk rock band from Pune, and went on to play a bevy of songs related to rebellion, love, surfer girls and all things live and energetic. Unfortunately, their set was marred with a 15 minute break to figure what went wrong with bassist Amit Bhaitia’s guitar. Also, vocalist and guitarist Jay K’s acoustic guitar didn’t really add much to the band’s music, except in bits and pieces here and there. A relatively new band, for a first gig outside home city, they did pretty well.
Post rockers A Mutual Question were the second band for the night. The five piece band played their regular set composed of originals, maintaining the intensely spacey feel in their sound. Very bluntly, this wasn’t their tightest set, as seen at earlier editions of BOMB Thursdays. To their credit however, this band seemed to be having technical issues as well, with guitarist Siddharth Chopra losing sound in the middle of a track. 10 minutes later, the band was back to playing their set. Though Failure Is The Creator and Farm Furls were the best songs for the night, the band is really much better than this set.
Alternative electronic band Killer fan were the last band for the night. The solo experimental project of Itek Bhutani, the gig also had collaborators Anjo John on bass and Ramya Iyer taking on vocal duties. Their act was definitely the best for the night, especially given the very unique sound and set the trio performed. Their music was downright trippy, and Iyer’s voice just worked wonders for the music. Also, their performance was technically sound, and the lighting at the place just amplified the brilliance of the music. The third time around, when everything seemed technically perfect, the gig had to be brought to a stop given the late timing.
While the music was pretty good, the setting of the venue was not exactly meant for a gig, with people sitting in the front and people standing at the back. Also, the sound for the place needs to be checked since certain portions of the gig had extremely sharp, hard on the ears music, and some others, it was impossible to distinguish between the different instruments. Then again, with ennui.BOMB hopefully finding a permanent venue in 3 Wise Monkeys, this should be a one-off situation.
Pictures - Dhananjay Mane Photography/ PopSplat.in
