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Before you read this memoir written by Subir Malik, who serves the Keyboard duties in the band Parikrama, go on and watch the videos of Parikrama’s performance at Download Fest. The song “Vapourize” …yes they do spell with a U, has to be the biggest rocker from Parikrama over the years and so was the performance:
Parikrama - Tears of the Wizard
And now, here is the article written for HT city by Subir himself, published on June 25th 2007, to give you an insight of our experience at the Download festival:
2 months of preparations, endless practice sessions, 479 hours on the internet, 1763 email exchanges with Phantom music, 14 hotels rejected for not having electric kettles, shopping sessions for Kohinoor pre-cooked food/clothes/Flat pin adapters/classic milds/Underwears and many other unmentionable miscellaneous items….AND then we were there, standing on the Moto GP Podium, at the legendary DONINGTON PARK, hoping to see Rossi up there, just a few weeks from the biggest day of our lives, the 10th of June 2007 A.D. Yes, we were playing the Download Festival.
The morning chill and fog still settling down,and we, 67 minutes before time (maybe our excitement), still looking for the open truck to take all our stuff to the mainstage. 8:07 am – the stuff is loaded and we are all seated in the transfer coach beaming with confidence, anxiety and waiting to see how the world looks from up there, up there on the mainstage. 08:16 am- we reach the band hospitality area of the festival, we cross a horde of green rooms, and they read Dream Theatre, Evanescence, Stone sour, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Chimaira and finally Parikrama.The room had everything a band needs before a show, big fat sofas, centrally air conditioned, loads of food, water, juices and 48 cans of chilled beer. Though, we used a few of the things provided, we left the beers, post 11:25 am.
08:39 am – We finally reach “up there” and it looks/feels wonderful. What a view man!09:16 a:m- We start setting up our backline backstage. 09:27 am: we are ready to go onstage, but the Maiden crew is doing a tech check, and it’s an experience to just see ‘em doing their stuff. 10:17 am – we finally get the go ahead to “occupy” the mainstage. The Download crew just rolls our stuff on trolleys to the stage. 10:51 a:m – we are through with a line check and ready to rock.
10:57 am – We do a band embrace, backstage, and here we are to start our set. There are about 20,000 people (rest are still sleeping, as it’s a wet cloudy day) waiting and they give us a really needed clap and cheers of acceptance, as we come back on the stage. 11:00
Just as we announced before (Parikrama - Iron Maiden and Beyond), here is the complete confirmed list of Parikrama’s appearances in UK:
June 9th - Rios, Leeds, UK
June 10th- The Download Festival, Donington Park, UK
June 15th- The Underground, Camden, UK
June 19th - Charlotte Leicester, UK
June 20th - Civic, Wolverhampton, UK
June 22nd - Kingston, UK
The biggest attraction will be The Download festival in Donington Park, UK. But all in all the band will be going around in the British territories. With this Parikrama will become the first official Indian band to ever get such International exposure. This is what Rod Smallwood, Iron Maiden’s Manager has to say about the band:
“We were completely blown away by the intensity and passion of the India crowd and also by the quality of PARIKRAMA. I just didn’t realise there were metal/rock bands of this quality in India. I was so impressed by their playing and attitude and professionalism and all of the Iron Maiden band and crew watched and listened to their entire set backstage. So I asked the Download promoters Live Nation to add them to the bill opening our Maiden day, the Sunday, on the main stage.”
What’s the band’s reaction to all this sudden crash of exposure?
“They said we can’t believe that bands like this existed in India, give your CD’s and contacts. Four days later they send us a mail saying the whole band loved your music and phantom records told us we want you to play at the download festival,” - Subir, -Keyboard
“Honestly we don’t know. It can be a kickass performance with the audience enthralled or just go the other way. Lets be real, anything can happen,” - Nitin, -Vocals
“A musician there earns enough to buy that five million dollar mansion. I just want enough to afford a DDA flat” - Dilip -Drums
Parikrama hasn’t forgotten their loyal fan base in India either. Noticeably, they will be performing their all original sets in UK at all the gigs and for their Indian fans they did the same set at their gig in DV8, Connaught Place on May 25th and there will be the same gig tonight at CTC, Gurgaon at 8:00 pm.
No matter what the new age rockers have to say, no matter if they never came out with an album, no matter if the extra sensory metal heads of the contemporary times find it hard to identify with their sound, Parikrama has struggled real hard for more then a decade, and they had created a name and they have talent enough to win over the Iron Maiden A&R teams. It is time that Indian make an impact in the International arena. Godspeed..!!
Every single Indian rocker knows that Parikrama opened for Iron Maiden in Bangalore on 17th March. That was some news, but nobody knows about the kind of impact that show left on everybody from the lands of rock that day. The Maidens themselves paid the Parikrama a visit back stage to congratulate them on their unique blend of Indian classical and retro rock of the 70s. Parikrama wasn’t even expecting to see the Maidens, let alone their coming to them personally. Well to sum it all it was an awesome experience for the band that has been singing for more then 14 years and that too without a single album to their credit.. some nerve..
Noticeably Parikrama performed all original set at the gig and also played two new songs. The success of the show and the impact it had was blatantly projected in the article “Maiden India” by Ed Vulliamy which was released online on the Observer Guardian Unlimited on Sunday, April 22, 2007. This is the official say:
“If the support band, Parikrama, don’t soon make inroads in the West, the A&R system is malfunctioning badly. During an entrancing instrumental called ‘The Open Sky’, the violinist, Imran Khan, played a hypnotic solo entwining heavy rock, Paganini and the chromatics of Ravi Shankar, while a huge, majestic but appropriately ominous jet-black house crow hovered above the stage.
Offstage, Parikrama’s vocalist Nitin Malik says with a knowing look: ‘Yes, that number can often change the weather.’ He explains that ‘heavy rock in India has been the preserve of the young intelligentsia until now. But it is filtering down to the blue-collar workers, becoming the music of a new generation in a new kind of country. But,’ he adds, ‘there is nothing in the world like playing on the same stage as Iron Maiden.’