Yes, that's what I had on independence eve night at Bangalore, a good mix of Avial. No, we are not referring to the dish here but the Mallu rock band Avial. My 1st real rock show, so nothing much to compare it to. But yes it was fun for me, and inspired the very malnourished Malayalam singer in me to sing along.
The crowd was very much an Avial crowd in-spite of the organisers move of advertising the show with Parikrama as the main heroes.
Tony, the main singer of Avial very much reminded me of The Devil, with his sexy bald hair, pixie pointed ears, pale skin, sharp eyes, and just fit body. These not so mallu looks, along with his paccha (raw) Malayalam combined his trademark the rebel mallu attire consisting of a school boy white shirt and a black lungi was what the crowd out there loved most about him.
The “Tony, Tony” chants went on throughout the performance, and he dint disappoint his fans one bit. In between the hit numbers he had his own corny malayalam lines like “are we roking, and rolingg makalle?” to keep the crowd entertained.
Thanks to unequal growth hormones between the sexes I was right behind a bunch of tall guys who just kept jumping all the time, making my view of the concert much more difficult. The crowd was very sane for a rock concert, but off course there was the mood of alcohol, mixed with the fragrance of dope every 5 mins a new guy passed by.
The band is a ‘Rang De Basanthi’(with full reference to the movie) type band. In the sense it is one that has the power to make even the ‘Fraud mallu’ sit back, listen, feel proud to be a Malayali, and understand a few issues/stories related with the place he/she comes from.
The popularity of the band’s music is not restricted to just to Kerala, but crosses even the country’s borders. Many compare it to the popularity of the band to that of the German rock band ‘Rammstein’, with the similarity that both sing in strange languages, but the music is as good as ever.
Also called ‘Alternate Malayalam rock’ genre, the band is one that made me tone my tongue to twist it a bit further to sing their Malayalam lyrics. When someone makes you try hard to do something you never bothered to then that is what I call Influential. No doubt Avial is one such band in the history of Malayalam music.
