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.

Intimate energy for music lovers

Shakira, Beyonce, 50 cent, Akon, Buddy guy and the rest. Only got a glimpse of the top of their head the
last time around at the MMRDA grounds? Would you prefer a more intimate personal experience with the
music and the artist that you love? While musicians and artists especially international acts have almost
always been known to play concerts in large venues (read MMRDA in Mumbai), with the likes of clubs
such as Blue Frog and the Hard Rock Cafe, many more artists are looking at playing gigs in smaller
confined venues.

Wyclef Jean of the fugees fame has performed at the Hard Rock Cafe recently. His first professional visit
to India, and he hasn't performed at a large scale concert anywhere in the country unlike other international
acts. Rather Wyclef has performed at the Hard Rock franchises in Pune and Delhi and Bangalore. While
live band venues have always been a phenomenon all over the world, leaving out local bands and artists no
international act is known to have played a gig at such confined arenas in the city. But the trend seem to be
slowly edging out with the likes of the Hard Rock Cafe and Blue Frog providing a platform for a more
intimate personal experience.

While the Hard Rock Cafe,to a large extend, caters to commercial well known artists, Blue Frog
differentiates itself by not conforming to a particular national or artistic stereotype. With international acts
coming in every week to perform, the long list of artist that have performed there include artists from
Holland, France, Sri Lanka, Italy, Germany, USA, Austria. The list goes on. The genres of music that these
artist play ranges across transcendental, break beat, d&b, elctronica, progessive house, fusion, folk to
acoustic folk, beatbox, drum and bass, tribal, and more of the likes that you probably have never heard of.

"International artists are more than willing to come and perfrom in such venues. One major reason being
the tremendous legal hassles that they have to go through in terms of performing in larger open-air venues.
Also co-ordinating with event producers, taxation and rules regarding loud noise beyond a certain time
greatly hinders such events, huge sums of money not withstanding," says Rayna Jhaveri, Communications
Head, Blue Frog. "Artist touring Asia would have normally given venues in India a quick miss what with
the tribulation holding such events entails. However with clubs like ours, we provide a perfect platform for
them to make a pit stop. It's not that these artist wouldn't like to perform in India. They do. We just provide
them a more intimate and personal experience with music lovers in the city while also providing state of
the art equipment what with Blue Frog coming equipped with its own studio," she adds.

Hard Rock Cafe has already seen the likes of international artist like Daniel Bedingfield and Simon Webbe
perform at their venue last year. While Bedingfield was here as a part of charity dedicated to the upliftment
of underprivileged children, Webbe performed to promote his album. "The response in India has been
tremendous and people have appreciated the close experience with the artists that hard rock provides.
Performances like these provide a much better way for our clientele to get up close to their favourite
artists," says Sanjay Mahtani, executive CEO, Hard Rock Cafe. They plan to bring in atleast four renowned
internationals acts to the likes of Aerosmith and the Black Eyed Peas within the next six months. The cafe
is also testing the markets to try and bring in something on the lines of what they do in Hyde Park in
london frontlining several known artists.
Well, get ready to get closer to the feel of the music that sway your notes into play.