Punk On Toast and The Lightyears Explode played the Punk Night at the Blue Frog, Mumbai on Sunday, January 15.
Punk On Toast
“You’re here for some punk, man; not some Baba Ramdev”
Aditya Naik of Punk On Toast @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
Fairly clueless and inebriated, young and rebellious, and their first and possibly last gig at the venue – Punk On Toast had quite a disastrous debut at the Blue Frog last Sunday. Slated to play the first slot at the Lower Parel venue’s Punk Night, the Thane punk quartet were punk alright, only their music wasn’t punk enough. Part of their setlist featured a song called ‘Stereotypes’ which was about Gujaratis, and frontman Naik’s distaste for them, which didn’t seem quite justified, but he seemed okay with it.
Yogesh Lokare of Punk On Toast @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
Further into the set, the band displayed characteristics of being punk (whatever those are), but as the performance value went downhill, the entertainment value of the gig shot up. At this point, we knew we were in for an entertaining night. Someone even remarked, “This is classic Razz shit, man.” The band, whose name abbreviates to POT (not ironically) proceeded to play their songs with untuned guitars and off-key vocals. The intro to their track ‘How Does It Feel Now?’ sounded uncannily like Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and peaked when the vocalist ended it with a “royal fuck you all“ to the audience. Friends in the crowd ensured a massive cheer to any antic the frontman pulled off.
Aditya Naik of Punk On Toast @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
Naik also snapped a string on his guitar, retorted, “Fuck! What do I do now?” and walked around stage aimlessly asking audience members if anyone had a guitar. Following this the Thane boys played ‘Ground Zero’, without the guitar, which was a song about a place where they “got high.” Luckily for them, The Lightyears Explode were kind enough to lend them a guitar for their final song. This bit of the gig possibly made my evening, better than it had already gotten.
“How many of you use public transport? This song is about that! Oh, I forgot I’m at Blue Frog. No one uses public transport here. Everyone comes in their car.”
That will be all.
The Lightyears Explode
2011 had been a fairly interesting year for the garage punk rockers from the city. The Lightyears Explode won Channel [V] Launchpad, released their debut self-titled EP (download, stream, review), and also made it to our Best EP Indian as well as the Best Cover Art Lists. Three songs in, kicking off with ‘On and Off’, at their first gig of the year, the band looked tight and it seemed like the gig would finally make some sense. They played tracks of their debut EP, and also an excellent punk rendition of Kishore Kumar’s timeless hit ‘Ina Mina Dika’ (also covered by Goldspot, who are touring the country soon; deets here). One more song in, and that was pretty much the end of the gig we were hoping for.
Saurabh Roy of The Lightyears Explode @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
Siddharth Basrur of Goddess Gagged joined the band on stage for ‘She Probably Still Is’, during which frontman Roy invited audience members to join them on stage to dance. Basrur’s vocal contribution was top notch, but the dancing audience members seemed a little awry. At this point, Melroy D’Mello of Split offered to join on stage and play the guitar as well. He took the guitar, played a couple of riffs and broke in a drunken, slo-mo cover of ‘Smoke On The Water’ and refused to let go of the guitar. Roy gave up and sat down on stage, smiling away, clearly clueless about what he could’ve done. D’Mello went on to play a slower version of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ and snapped a guitar string. Another band, another string.
Siddharth Basrur (of Goddess Gagged) on guest vocals with The Lightyears Explode @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
All this while, bassist Benjamin and drummer Carvalho played along for a bit, and broke into shorter bursts of laughter immersed in helplessness. Roy, still sitting on the floor clueless of what to do, smiled away with the rest of the band joining him and putting the instruments down. A little convincing and some pleas got D’Mello back to the audience and the Punk On Toast members were kind enough to give them their other unsnapped guitar.
Shalom Benjamin of The Lightyears Explode @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
The Lightyears Explode played a short, but nifty first half of the set before being hijacked and closed with another track we wish had been ‘Garam Dharam’. All in all, it wasn’t really the best Sunday night at the Lower Parel venue. Frontman of Peter Cat Recording Co., Surkyakant Sahwney was seen staring at his burger and saying, “Man, this is like a garden inside bread. And, I can’t get myself to eat it.”
Melroy D'Mello of Split hijacking the Punk Night @ Blue Frog, Mumbai
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