Live: Mungolian Jet Set @ Blue Frog

The evening was destined to be poor from the moment the clock struck 9:03pm and the reluctant shelling out of entry was partook. Heavily overpriced food followed and the wait for the act seemed, therefore, unnecessarily long. Finally, the ‘band’ came on stage (not the Russell Peters way) at around 11. They were joined by Dhruv Ghanekar on guitar and a tabla accompanist. The look promised much with what I assume are Scandinavian ritualistic outfits.

And then they started.

They seemed to start for all of about 20 minutes going nowhere really with random beats thrown in and Ghanekar and the tabla player improvising whatever sounded right with the sound. Blue Frog you sneaky liars. You promised ‘Scandinavian dancedelic disco-luuv art rock’ and what I got was ‘two retired Scandinavian truckers who smoked too much and fiddled with pretty knobs on the pretty turntable’. Occassionally the guy on the right (see pic above) would say something on the PA. “Glugugugul herhieh… yeah! Mumbai!” Semblances of rhythms were produced, interspersed with the uninteligible vocals. Ghanekar walked on and off stage seemingly at random. The band took smoke breaks, during um, songs.

The music was difficult. For the first 15 minutes we waited for a semblance of excitement to break out. The audience was forced to make do. By far the worst gig I’ve attended in the last year.

In the words of the guy who runs City Wok in South Park, “Damn you Mongolians!”. You HAVE to watch that episode.

Indiecision: C-

Take the jump for more pics. Thanks to Shirley and her killer D50 for the same.