Fireflies Music Festival 2007, Bangalore

NOTE: Please excuse the bad quality of photos and videos, coz it was taken on a phone-cam, my intension is to let you listen to the music at least

[Image above: Tala Vadya, Percussion Band]

The Fireflies Festival of Sacred Music was held on Saturday (April 14, 2007) at the Fireflies Ashram, off Kanakapura road in Bangalore. It was earlier called as Bhoomi Jathre and this is the fifth year that the festival was being organized. The theme for this year is “Business and social/ecological responsibility.”

My experience at this event follows:

I got a forwarded email about this event and was recommended as a must see by my friend Subhash, who had been there for the previous edition in 2006. However, our only plan after watching the movie namesake was to enjoy a 18 km drive on Kanakapura road and hang out at the fireflies centre for an hour or so. So, we reached the place at around 9 pm. By the way, this event was from 6 pm (sunset) to 6 am (sunrise), which demanded a night out. However, we stuck around till 2 am and believe me, it was totally worth it..

The ambiance for this all-night event was just amazing. The stage was built around a huge banyan tree, below which the various bands performed. The audience (about 500 of them) were seated on concrete amphitheater like seats and comfortably looked down on the bands. I could see that few people had come prepared with shawls and even pillows for the night out.

The first musical event we saw was the “Tala Vadya” percussion group. I am not much of a classical musical expert, but that did not stop me from enjoying the different rhythms and thallas played by the musicians playing on different percussion instruments like mridangam, tabla, gatam, percussion pad etc..

[Video above: Tala Vadya (Karnataka College of Percussion)]

Next, was a performance by Clio Karabelia on the harp. Her hand and finger movement on the harp strings looked quite complicated and I appreciate her talent for the same. But, there was something wrong with this fusion performance, my views:

• The sitar and tabla was more dominant and audible
• She had some trouble tuning the harp (which we were told is a complicated process, because of the size and number of strings)
• She singing the hindu hymns honestly wasn’t working

[Image and Video above: Clio Karabelia (French Harpist), accompanied by Indian classical Music (Sitar and Tabla)]

Just when we wanted to leave, we heard about the next performance by the Jazz revival band. Leaving, No way !! What can I say, you had to be there to have enjoy the moment, which transported you to some other world..

[Image and Video above: Dr. Thomas Chandy with his group - Jazz Revival]

The next event of dollu kunita (drum dance in kannada) was definitely the highlight of the night, in terms of energy and sheer excitement it brought among the crowd watching. Later even after the event was over on stage, the crowd joined the drummers and danced like crazy to the beats of this dance form from Karnataka.. hats-off to the troupe member’s talent and stamina (to dance and perform continuously for an hour or so)

[Image and Video above: Dollu Kunita, watch for the building tempo of the drum beats and exhilarating dance movements in this video]

Other performances were to follow, like the famed oikyotaan, but it was time to go.. I will be there next year, prepared and ready with a better camera..

Fireflies music festival 2006:

• photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jace/sets/72057594103824468/
• review: http://aravind-krishnaswamy.blogspot.com/2006/04/fireflies-festival-of-sacred-music.html
• The Hindu: http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/31/stories/2006033100510200.htm