Live: Goldspot @ Hard Rock Cafe, Mumbai

That Goldspot are a singles band became 7Up clear at their gig at Mumbai’s Hard Rock Café. Thanks to Vh1 who brought them down as part of their Global Music Express series of concerts by international acts, the LA-based band, fronted by Indian-American Siddharth Khosla, was back in the city a little over a year after their performance at the One Tree Music Festival.

The performance had got a mixed response. Since One Tree is primarily a blues rock festival, the group’s pop-rock leanings turned many audience members off. But an equal number of people were charmed by their infectious melodies and Khosla’s charming boy-next-door manner. Many of these new fans made the trip to Hard Rock, which was not nearly as packed as it has been for some Vh1-organised events but was filled with a fair share of faces who don’t typically attend rock shows.

Those who had come expecting the band to replicate their appearance last year may have been somewhat satisfied. However, those, like us, looking for any sign of artistic evolution were summarily disappointed. Khosla seemed to have lost a few members since his last visit but that wasn’t as much of a problem as Hard Rock’s sound design’s inability to handle lows. But then we can’t blame the band for that. However, we can legitimately gripe about the fact that other than their now familiar “hits”, ‘Friday’, ‘Rewind’ and ‘Time Bomb’, the rest of their tunes off their debut album Tally Of The Yes Men are sheer filler material and that they returned sans much new material or more appropriately, sans any interesting new material. ‘Call Centre Girl’, one of the few fresh tracks they played was nowhere in the league of ‘Friday’.

Khosla repeatedly gave shout-outs to the crew of The President Is Coming, the Indian indie film for which he wrote a couple of songs. We presumed he did this every time Goldspot played a tune from the unreleased soundtrack. While he played ‘Paper Boats’ from the movie, he left out of the set list its much better, Hindi version ‘Haath Mein Lele’ because, we later learned, he does not know the lyrics.

Ever since his appearance at One Tree, Khosla has been basking in his newfound popularity in India. An endearing ability to unabashedly dance badly notwithstanding, Goldspot’s desi success seems to have lent him a starry air uncommon to indie acts. The gig started two hours after the advertised time, even though the band was spotted at the venue an hour before they began.

But this would not have mattered if Goldspot had managed to intermittently enchant the crowd the way they did their first time around. Instead, Khosla was content to pull the same old tricks out of his bag. When he crooned patriotic ditty ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon’ at the MMRDA Grounds, it came as a sweet surprise. When he dedicated the same song to the victims of the November terror attacks at Hard Rock, it sounded trite and unoriginal. It was only during ‘Rewind’ and a predictable-but-still-enjoyable medley of the English and Hindi versions of ‘Friday’ that Goldspot had the audience genuinely enthralled. This was because they are both undeniably great pop songs. Alas, two hits do not make a band.

Indiecision: B-