Adieu 2009 : Reminiscing the roller-coaster ride of the past year - Part 3

My last post had ended with reminiscing over MJ and his leaving us too soon. I miss him... or to be more precise... his presence in this world... Sigh... :(

Anyways...on to more light-hearted stuff...before I start on how bloody-effing-amazing the experience of doing the Tribute to MJ had been... I do want to mention a few other fun times that GT experienced during 2009...

The first one has to do with two shows we had outside Dhaka city. It was a NOKIA event, and as part of the launching strategy for their latest cell phone to hit the Dhaka market, they were arranging all these shows across Bangladesh... Chittagong, Sylhet, Bogura, Rajshahi and Khulna...called the “Nokia Boishakhi Music Mela”. We were asked by the agency which handles Nokia, to open for the main band...Warfaze. Unfortunately due to work and study pressures, we could only accept the dates for the last two cities...:(

Boy it was hectic. But it was so much fun! All road trips are, and if you get paid for something that you love doing...well...all I can say is “Woohooo!”

Because my back was still in its ‘recovery’ mode I went lying down the whole way..lol..taking up the space of two people :P..my feet resting on Saif’s lap...

One of our closest friends..Sabir...accompanied us on these trips...he's kind of like our very own "LIVE" entertainment. He kept trying to pull Jasper's leg ALL the time throughout the trip :D. I recall one time... while we were returning to Dhaka.. Jasper's dad called, asking about our whereabouts...and Sabir on the spot blurted out "Jamurki!" And Jasper actually told his dad "Amra akhon Jamurki'te" (We're in Jamurki)..and then after hanging up, went "What the fudge is Jamurkiii????"

The show at Rajshahi was our first brush with the mass audience outside Dhaka city. And we soon came to realize that forget GrooveTrap... and even Warfaze. This crowd was purely the L.R.B/Ayub Bachchu and Nagar Baul/James crowd...Beyond the Warfaze songs which had gained mass popularity, the audience were not that overly familiar with the band’s full discography.

So it was a lesson well learnt. For Khulna, we went on to include AB’s “Mon Chaile Mon Pabey” and James’ “Sultana Bibiana” in our setlist...a nice lil medley of the two..hehe. Jasper came on stage, bespectacled, wearing his Bermuda shorts,...and went on to shout out to the crowd... “Khulna! Kotha kom! Kaj Beshi!” Afff...such a nice mimic of James he is ..down to the singing! Haha. Needless to say we made the crowd go wild that time.

Anyways...the overall trip to Khulna was way better than Rajshahi. We were put up in a fab hotel in Khulna..Hotel Royal International...where other than the nicely furnished rooms, the food was excellent. Best part? A complementary glass of fresh juice (the lemon one is AWESOME) served with the three basic meals of the day :D

As Russel Peters would say.. A Class!

The best ‘gift’ we got out of this show was about four months down the road. We had gained a fan in Khulna who, while on a sojourn to Dhaka, called up our bassist, Adil Bhai, (he’d saved the number back during the tour)...and requested to come to one of our live shows if we were having any.

And so we invited him over to our gig at the Nokia Glitterbug event on August 13th... :) and took a snap together...

Sigh... (this one’s a good sigh... hehe)

Anyways, the second experience I am going to elaborate on in my next post. For now all I’ll say is that it involved an illicit love affair...a murder...and a whole lot of hair-spray!

Cheerio!

Clockwise from bottom left: Sabir, Jasper & Me, On with the show, Saif, the crowd at Khulna, Me lying in the micro, the current GT line-up on a launch