Evergreen Unplugged

Whoa, what a week that was in Mumbai! As you all know, we participated in the MTV Taking Pole Position and as part of it, we were asked by the MTV officials to record two hour footage of our journey. We had to shoot our entire journey on our handy cam. Four of us - AD, Jagan, Sammy, and Sunil went together to the airport and AB joined us later.
Well, we were not allowed to take videos inside the airport. But we started shooting anyway because it’s a once in a lifetime chance. Jagan was the cameraman for the day. We were going through the security checking and due to excess luggage problem, Jagan had to go deal with it and the camera was passed onto AD. While shooting, AD felt someone tapping his shoulders and when he turned he was shocked to see an AK47 facing him. It was as if the whole world crumbled in front of his eyes. He was taken to the chief security officer. And lo here comes the second comic event of the day. None of us knew Hindi and the chief didn’t know English. And then comes Superman... Jagan (jaggu bhai) to the rescue. He apologized and told that he would delete the last security checking footage. After that, we paid a hefty fee for the excess 27kgs and moved on.

We were done with the checking and were ready to board the flight. Since this was AD’s first flight, we fed him scary stories while waiting in the lounge. At the same time we continued to shoot. The flight was announced, we got into the bus, found that it was a small flight, a propeller. We continued nagging AD by telling that something might go wrong during the flight and as expected we continued shooting while boarding the flight.

Just then, a heavenly figure walked towards us in slow motion as we gasped for air, mesmerized by the beauty. The air hostess then asked us not to take the video of the crew and we were crushed. Being a Kingfisher Red flight we were not served food. We flew till Bangalore starving, bored and heartbroken.

After landing in Bangalore, we had an hour’s break and we boarded our next flight towards Mumbai. Fortunately, here we were served with food. The Non-Veg got over after the fortunate Sammy’s turn, which left the rest of us without any option other than veg (shudder).No offence but the veg food here plopped and slobbered. Out of courtesy, Sammy offered his chicken to us and we grabbed the coming opportunity without any delay. It was like piranhas on a fresh kill.
We landed MUMBAI airport at 8pm. And while taking the luggage Mr. Vasanth, the coordinator of the show, called us and informed us of the shooting with the hidden cameras while departed from the airport. It was a really special moment for us and we felt like true rock stars. We got into the car with Mr. Vasanth and another lady official. On the way they questioned us about our flight, Metallica and little other random stuff. At last we reached our hotel. They had made the arrangements for us in a huge suite. We had five more bands in the same floor. To taste the flavour of Mumbai, we got fresh and stepped out into the city looking for the famed Bade Miya’s, Mocha and a bit of beer.

City Block Video Shoot - Day 2

So we began the journey from Jagan's aunt's house at 8am; we were heading to the location for the shoot. We discovered we had a new make up artist - the first one obviously gave up on us and probably wanted to share the pain of making us look decent with someone else!

The new location was in a village so we had breakfast at a teashop... unfortunately, the owner only had appam and egg roast.

We were surrounded by paddy fields and greenery. Again, we needed to set up all the sound equipment. After setting up came the make up - and the make up artist requested Sunil to go first. Bad move! Everyone including Tom asked the make up man not to do that but he was very insistent... maybe he was speaking from experience! A couple of hours later (!) the make up man began complaining about all his make up being utilised on just one person. This meant the rest of the band faced the camera without any make up... This WAS a waste of time and make up - Sunil looked no different than 2 hours earlier!

Shooting commenced and by 1pm, we needed a lunch break. Jagan's aunt had very kindly prepared a good, old-fashioned home cooked meal - Kerala rice, fish curry and other accompaniments. The house helper, Rajappan, bought some toddy from the toddy shop - Anish and Saji had beaming smiles stretched across their faces! Jagan's cousins, Joe and Jubin, were also helping. After lunch, as tradition goes, we took a nap - Sunil was over the moon!

After awaking, we began shooting again. Usually we would get a lot of onlookers, comprising of the local villagers, but because of a village funeral, visitors were few. But soon, children began returning from school and stopped to get a view of the shoot - for them, it was a first to see a band performing. They were so excited, they wanted to get a feel of the drums and strums of the guitar. Anish and Sunil entertained the children and showed them how to play their instruments.

The days shoot was over.. Jagan's aunt was ready and armed with tea and snack (tapioca and fish fry!) We packed all our stuff after eating and prepared ourselves for the journey back to Cochin..

Unfortunately, nobody remembered the issues we previously had with the accelerator cable. The driver of the vehicle was sleeping the whole day so on our way back, we had to stop once to sort out the same problem as before.

Eventually we got back home. We dropped off Tom and his assistant in Fort Cochin (he was planning to go shoot a boat race in Allepey the next day). He said he would shoot some additional footage without the band members.

Now... we are awaiting the pre-edited version of our video for City Blocks but in the meantime please enjoy this promotional video clip of the days' shooting!