Mumbai pumped up the volume and brought the beat down with Wyclef Jean on saturday night at the Hard
Rock Cafe. Organised by VH1 as part of its ‘Handpicked’ programme, the event kickstarted with dancers
high up on the stage gyrating to samba. From where i stood, it looked like the bar roof was about to cave
in! People (mostly employees of Hard Rock) with tacky masks and lit up shades paraded the cafe and
somehow the female crowd around me seemed largely amused by it. Where were we at a rave? It felt like
some sadistic bastard was drawing out all the oxygen with a vacuum pump as i was left sweating and
gasping for air. So were my buddies. Add to that having to move, twist and turn everytime someone passed
because there was just no place to stand. Of course it didn't help that i had come straight from work to
cover the event with my huge g-star bag which only drew a lot of snide remarks. Well who really did care
at that point. And most of us hadn't eaten anything. It really didn't help that the rest were either half drunk
or too stoned. Even smoking a joint right in the middle of the cafe. But hey, they did realize by the time
anyone actually makes it there to throw us out, either the joint will be done or we would have been shoved
to an unknown corner even we would fail to recognize.
It took us ten minutes to get to the bar by which time the space we had occupied didnt even exist. Another
ten to get our drinks (which was steep by the way. 185 for a 25 rupee beer? Man Wyclef better be good!).
The crowd was getting really impatient by then. The heat, sweat and crowd wearing everones temperament
on a thin line. And please Hard Rock, the YMCA routine is kind of stale now. It wasn't even that amusing
while it first started!No offence Natasha. Good moves but they have got to come up with something new.
The waiters doing the routine looked like the only ones having fun. Is that the image you want to
project?While the rest of us boil in our misery? And no way would anyone wanna watch a bunch of terrible
waiter-dancers do the YMCA when we paid just so we could watch Wyclef. Not a good way to appease
people. My buddies grew tired of boo-ing and demanding for Wyclef. Turn around to your drinks. My beer
bottle had suddenly turned into a hot rod and i had to let it go. What a waste!

It was only an hour later than the slotted time did the event start with guests showing signs of restlessness
in the packed venue. But then what else is new. Once the artist came up on stage, he had all the revellers
grooving to his most popular tracks and covers. Really? That was for the paper so i had to use words like
that. But it's not entirely untrue. The crowd loved him.

The ladies in the house particularly had fun with Wyclef's popular track ‘Hips don't lie’ with a few of them
heading up to the stage to shake their hips. He was everywhere to the crowds delight, from the elevated
floor to the section upstairs (where some unenthusiastic pseudo-important people strayed far off the
madding crowd!), keeping the audience on their toes. His track ‘jump around’ brought in a different kind
of vibe as the mosh that was the audience started jumping, heads popping everywhere.
People kept climbing onto the barricade blocking our entire view, at which point we had a tiff with this
bulky American dud who just wouldn.t get down. He was earlier seen waving the menu for his half baked
girl so she could prevent her cake that was her makeup from melting. Well that was that. The dude later
apologised anyway.

Audiences even found space to let themselves go in the venue that somehow began to resemble a fast local
train during rush hour on a hot summer day. Whether it was Wyclef or the lack of air in the venue,
something definitely did set the temperature rising!
Wyclef was later joined on stage by who he called "Brother for another mother", Aadesh Shrivastava
whom he had collaborated with as a part of his Indian tour. He even sang along lines in Punjabi with
Aadesh. "Who's he? Go home!" was a very common murmur.
A kid rapping his current popular track ‘the sweetest girl’(although I didn't hear a thing he was singing. He
did quite an impromptu jig which ranged from monkeys swaying on discovery to Bollywoods ridiculous
moves to a little bit of krumping and poppin!), an eclectic bunch of people on stage with him(caucasian,
African, Indian, lotsa chicks with short skirts and celluloid and a platinum blonde guy), his bodyguard
prancing on stage, naming himself the ‘don’ of hip-hop; those were the antics but it was a seemingly
orchestrated tryst with the deadline by police that set the crowd wild as he increased the volume a notch
higher and continued with his songs.
Gone till novenber of course that kept us crowing along. Don't know about his obsession with covers but
there were hardly original compositions. Of course fugees songs which a lot of people were acrediting to
him. If i were president of course. That songs makes so much more sense when your'e stoned.
Hands in the hot air, and the energy levels of the crowd not swaying for a single moment, Wyclef was in
his element and for the record, you better not mistake him for Will-i-am from the black eyed peas. Who?
We were all beat just as the show was coming to an end. Empty stomachs, extremely dehydrated from all
the profuse sweating, and dead tired. Be gone till november.