TAAQing

Kyra is the kind of place Bangalore needs. A venue planned around performance, acoustically designed, with a good-sized stage, appropriate sound installation, lights… They call it a ‘dinner theatre’, and it’s a bit odd on stage at first; dinner tables are set right up against it, and the audience is seated in vertical rows so they can turn a few degrees to watch. But it sounds good in there. The ‘atmosphere’, we’re sure, will follow soon enough. And by the number of acts performing there already, that shouldn’t take too long.

And suddenly… unexpectedly… just like that… Bangalore gets a world-class performance venue.

Despite being the IT/BT capital of the world for over a decade, all that progress hardly made a whisper of a difference when it came to sound and lights available at any of the performance venues in our city. Progress, if any, was reflected in the pricing of the food and drinks. The only place that has great, world-class sound is apparently the Infy boardroom where Murthy and Nandan jam on their Midas XL8 digital console (known to be the world’s best board). No kidding, they’ve got the works in there, I hear. While we mega rockstar guys have to shut up and play with whatever comes our way. Kyra, with its 30/40 stage + JBL VRX compact line array system with multiple dual 18″ subs powered by QSC amplifiers, processed and managed by a DBX Driverack + VRX delay speakers designed with ‘EASE’ to ensure even quality of sound across the venue. Not to mention the Soundcraft GB 2-24 24 channel mixer + Truss with 36 lighting points handled by a LSC Maxim M dmx lighting console with 48 faders.

Thank you Kyra. Bangalore desperately needs you.

All the very best, and whatever happens the show must go on.

May 17. It’s the night of the big election result, and the CEC is likely to call off the dry day at 6 PM. That means a lot of us are going to be very thirsty indeed. Flipside: the roads are going to be a lot less safe if all the tipplers get behind the wheel after celebrating or mourning or whatever.

This Sunday, Thermal And A Quarter and Kyra raise a toast to the spirit of responsible drinking.

If you stand up for your tippling friends and stay sober, and if you volunteer to drive them home, you get a free drink coupon from Kyra (redeemable, of course, on your next visit – if you are not driving again, that is!). Also, the first 1o lucky Unstoned Heroes get a free, autographed copy of This Is It, the hottest rock album by the coolest Indian rock band.

Don’t worry, if you don’t have the liver to abstain, there’s help. You can hop into a cab arranged, by the management, at a very special fare.

Go on, be an Unstoned Hero! Drink. And be driven.

Because Sunbeam Motha is no more, we will all pay tribute to his memory and to the Music Strip, which he pioneered in the early 1980s. Time chases its tail this Sunday, when the Music Strip reincarnates as The Live Gig. Join us and many others at this fond and nostalgic revival. We’re on nearabouts 4 PM.

Reviewing This Is It in in Time Out Delhi, Kingshuk Niyogy wrote:

Online or off it, the new record is an eminently listenable effort, with sharp, precise instrumentation, great vocal harmonies and nice hooks. If one was to make comparisons, Steely Dan would come up, with slight detours into Phish territory.