Live: JD Rock Awards @ Hard Rock, Mumbai

The JD Rock Awards got off to a rocky start well before the ceremony held at Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday, Feb 12. When the awards were officially announced the website where bands had to upload their entries didn’t have an ‘Upload’ button. When the Upload button finally arrived, the bugs on the rest of the site prevented bands from getting confirmations about whether their entries had been accepted or not.

Finally when the nominations were announced, browser compatability issues meant that the voting for the popular choice awards via the website was a tedious process.

Then came the awards ceremony itself which was held on a Thursday night and entry was priced at Rs 500, which meant that for a large majority of Indian rock lovers available to attend the event on a college/work-weekday, getting in was too expensive.

On a night aimed at recognising original rock music in the country, it was disheartening to see some of India’s top guitarists asked to perform covers in a ‘Tribute To The Guitar Gods’. The house band for the night was Hipnotribe, who were unusually loose. Their drummer Kurt Peters was all over the place with songs going off tempo frequently while guitarist/singer Paresh Kamath was fighting a losing battle with the sound mix that had his guitar too loud and vocals too low. Their cover of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ was uninspired and, given Peters’ waywardness, poorly executed.

The ‘Tribute to the Guitar Gods’ was also hampered by the poor sound which saw the likes of Rudy Wallang, Dhruv Ghanekar (who covered ‘Roxanne’), Floyd Fernandes (who covered ‘Walk This Way’ by Aerosmith) and Rex Vijayan (who covered a cover of a classic song; Van Halen’s version of The Kinks ‘You Really Got Me’) succumb to the mix and Hipnotribe’s looseness. Only Amyt Datta (who covered ‘Hey Joe’ by Jimi Hendrix and The Screaming Headless Torsos) and, to a lesser extent, Randolph Correia (who covered ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’ by the Beastie Boys) were able to produce any semblance of discernable guitar skill from the mix.

Then came Luke Kenny, the host of the evening, who covered (vocals only, Hipnotribe with the music) Led Zeppelin. When he tried the weird bit (with the “Oohs” and “Aahs”) on ‘Whole Lotta Love’, he sounded even more amateurish than when attempting the verses. His was by far the worst performance of an already poor evening; this excluding the overall WTF-ness of the award announcements.

Of all the bands nominated and receiving awards (check out the complete list of winners), only Avial, Shaa’ir + Func, Scribe and Rosemary made it to the ceremony. Gary Lawyer was there as well to receive his ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’. Joining the musicians were a few out of place celebrities like Ranvir Shorey, Konkona Sen and Hard Kaur. While the first two, when asked to present an award, went about the task with only a dash of awkwardness, Hard Kaur was intent on making it known that she too was, in fact, a musician. When announcing the nominations for an award she broke into her ‘Glassy’ song, to our complete and utter surprise. What was even more astounding was that the few people in the audience who had come to Hard Rock that night, began singing along. It was tragic but given the conspicuous lack of black t-shirts and only the one apparent dude rooting vociferously for Avial to win their awards (they won all the top honours), something that was perhaps on the cards.

These faux pas were a regular feature of the night, exacerbated by the fact that almost everyone at the event, save for those involved with the music itself, knew nothing or fairly little about Indian rock. Suneeta Rao was also asked to present an award. She said something to the effect of, “It’s great to see so many rock bands making their own music. This is the music we’ve all grown up on.” All the music nominated for awards, save Gary Lawyer, was released and/or performed in 2008.

Even the musicians weren’t spared. Monica Dogra (Shaa’ir of Shaa’ir + Func) was asked to announce and present awards in which her own band was nominated! That’s like asking Clint Eastwood to present the Golden Globe for Best Original Score because everyone knows he’s not going to win it. To her credit, she went about the task as considerately as one could be expected in such a situation.

By the time Luke Kenny came on to perform his Led Zeppelin covers (near the end of the evening) a lot of people from the audience had already started leaving. Work beckoned on Friday, and we couldn’t blame them for not staying till the end of what was an almost completely unrewarding and disappointing event.

Indiecision: D