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News |  10 Aug 2013 11:00 |  By RnMTeam

Blue Frog charity concert for Uttarakhand

MUMBAI: Powerful rock and an effervescent crowd is perhaps the most ideal equation for a good concert. And that is exactly what the You For Uttarakhand concert was. Part of the Blue Frog calendar, the charity concert turned out to be quite a success, considering it was on a thursday. Needless to say, the flashy lighting, good music and masses of people set the mood to the right frequency, making the atmosphere slightly shortwinded. With six performances lined up for the evening, the initiative was to collect money from the entry charges and contribute the same to the relief fund for the children affected by the recent Uttarakhand floods. All the collection is to be directed to Save the Children, an international organisation working for children’s rights.

The event kicked off with an entertaining solo performance by Amul Star Voice of India contestant, Ryan Dias. The vivacious artist danced to ‘It had better be tonight’ by Michael Buble and put a lot of soul into ‘What a wonderful world’ by Celine Dion. The crowd started filling up post his performance; a short presentation on the cause was being presented by Irwin Fernandes. Next in line was The Other People, an independent band that has survived eight years, did covers for meaningful songs like Yellow (Coldplay), 500 Miles, and an original track called Save the World. The lead vocalist, Zarir Warden says, “We have been doing charity events and launches this entire season. The moment we were approached, we agreed to do it. We know what happened in Uttarakhand and it was terrible. We wanted to do something that could give us a chance to give back to society,” The band is working on their solo album which will be out early next year. “We are not uploading EPs or anything else on SoundCloud. We want to build the excitement.”

After Dolly Thakore announced some number of casualties and affected people, she congratulated the organisers, Juhi Khanna and Stephanie Fernandes,  for the commendable job they did in bringing about the concert. Next was Spud in the Box, a college rock band, that literally shook the stage with their tight performances, doing ‘Attention please’, a crowd favorite. “We heard about the event quite a while back via social media and were very keen on doing it,” narrated the lead guitarist, Sidhharth Talwar. Their new EP is out on iTunes and they plan to start recording early next year.

Warren Mendonsa’s Blackstratblues blew the audience, with strong chords on the electric guitar by Warren and an equally energetic drummer, Gino Banks. They performed ‘Folk Three’, a purely folk-rock track. “The initiative is great. I wore the You For Uttarakhand t-shirt during the gig that they have out here to collect more funds,” said Gino, who was filling in last minute for their drummer. But he connected closely with the event for one more reason, “We are all independent artists and we do not get time to meet our fraternity. Such events give us a chance to bring the music community together.”

The Siddharth Basrur Project performance and the one by The Square Routes kept the concert going till almost 2.00 AM. Organisers Juhi and Stephanie were amazed with the number of people who turned up for the show. “We saw the news and were touched. We did make individual contributions to NGOs but we wanted to do more. The concert was Stephanie’s Idea,” explained Khanna.

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