Live: Nikhil @ Blue Frog

Nikhil D’Souza played the Blue Frog on Tuesday, May 26. We were there along with an adoring, predominantly female audience.

Nikhil D’Souza wants to be Damien Rice. He sometimes wants to be David Gray. The good thing is that he doesn’t do too bad a job of doing either, and he’s helped in his quest by a very able backing band that has that all important ability to make music that would otherwise seem dreary and repetitive fun while it lasts.

The trouble, and alas there always seems to some when it comes to our homegrown guys and girls with acoustic guitars, is that the acts themselves are works-in-progress, each bursting with potential but none quite there yet. D’Souza is no exception. He makes pleasant enough tunes but they take time to grow on you – a couple of days after his gig, except for his “breakthrough” track ‘Changes’, we couldn’t remember a single other one of the tunes he played.

Fortunately for him, like Delhi’s Sajid Akbar, he’s blessed with a raspy voice and a charming personality that makes him a sure hit with the ladies, as was evident by the small fan club of female friends who were cheering him during the decidedly more uptempo, and thus more enjoyable second-half of his set, when the funky ‘Satisfaction’ and the jazz-tinged ‘All You Want’ added some much-need variation into mix. It would have helped if D’Souza had varied tempos more in the first half, and perhaps explained the stories behind his songs a little more. He is after all very much in the sensitive singer-songwriter mould, and since we have so few, a little more audience interaction – other than just mentioning track names – could have gone a long way.

Indiecision: B-