The Highway 61 ~ Blog!

It was a trip of sleeper classes and stolen mobile phones, of 104 fevers and cold & coughs, of radio and jingles, of street foods and photo shoots, of cramped rickshaws and a Detour, of back to back shows and some awesome time with fans!

The trip starts with all of us taking a bus from Pune to Mumbai. For the first time, all band members arrive at the destination (Parihar Chowk) before time! So we had to wait for the bus at the roadside with everyone staring at the 5 huge instrument cases we are carrying. To top that Muneem bhaiya is wearing his typical “terrorist” stole. All the more reason to stare!

One constable who was feeling very “responsible” took this as an opportunity to finally do some duty and started questioning us about the big-black-bomb-look-a-like-instrument flight cases!

Finally we had to show him a guitar and tell him “hum log band baaje wale hai” so that he would believe

Owing to the “low travel budget” for the show & last minute reservations, we all were now perched on the dingy berths of the sleeper class of the train from Mumbai. This is where our dear Hardik’s precious mobile phone gets stolen from right under his nose! Ironically his last tweet from the phone was “The amusing inconveniences of the sleeper class…”. Bet it wasn’t amusing for him after this incident.

When we reach Ahmedabad in the morning, we find Anant is running high on fever! Damn the sleeper class and it’s mosquitoes!

So we all hurriedly cramp ourselves (along with still-being-stared-at-big-black-bomb-look-a-like-instrument flight cases) in 3 rickshaws and head to Anant’s place.

We leave Anant to rest at his place (but not before we hogged the awesome gujju snacks her mom had prepared ) and head to Luxuria on S.G road where we are supposed to perform in the evening.

We thank our dear friend Aditi Anjaria for brilliantly organizing everything we needed for the show and also playing the band’s official photographer for the day!

Check out some snaps taken by her!

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Also all Amdavadi people should check out the two restaurants in Luxuria, HSF (High Street Food) and Haute Peppers. The food is excellent! All vegetarian though, much to the disappointment of Muneem & Rahul.

After checking out the arrangements and an excellent lunch (and some awesome snaps by Aditi), we head to 94.3 myFM for an interview. We meet the over excited RJ Krupa, we compose a jingle for myFM, record the jingle and an acoustic version of Mazhab, say bye and leave.

The rest of the afternoon is spent in crossword reading books and sipping coffee waiting for the sound guy to set up for the evening.

Anant arrives in the evening but is still running high on fever. We tell him to go home but he says in Raj Kapoor style “The show must go on”.

And he plays! And what a brilliant show it was \m/ We all had a blast playing, jumping, breaking stuff and making people sing along.

And the Ahmedabad public is as supportive as always which is why we jump at every opportunity to play in Ahmedabad.

And which is why we had another show lined up for the next day at our friend Mrugank Shah’s activity center – Detour!

Fun Fact: Mrugank used to play guitars with a 4 member band in Pune called Overdrive. The other 3 members were Highway 61’s Hardik, Rahul and Anant! Overdrive’s original song “Cocaine give me life” composed by Mrugank is still fondly remembered.

The crowd at Detour was super awesome! Detour has a capacity of around 40 people and more than double the people had turned up of the show! Oh! how we love Ahmedabad

With Ranjit Negi’s awesome sound arrangement and our friend Kshitij Saxena jamming with us on his heart warming flute, it was an evening to remember.

Special thanks to Rahul Mansur for taking some brilliant snaps at the event. Check them out below:

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All in all, a rocking trip! We are eagerly awaiting the next chance to perform in “apnu Amdavad”

Cheers & Peace!

As we have said in our post on Jaago Zara:

It is a short song with a valuable message – Take a stand, Make a choice, Vote!  Not just for a political party or the government or because it’s your duty, but vote for the things you love, value and cherish! 

Jaago Zara is all about speaking your mind, and we want to hear what you, our Bandits, have to say!

For the uninitiated, Highway 61 is  recording the song “Jaago Zara” and we will release it as a single in the near future. And if you have heard the song live, there is a part in the song where we shout out the things we vote for. These are any random things that come to our mind at that particular moment which we feel the junta should hear and think about.

Now, for the official recording of the song, we want our fans & supporters to record, in their own voice, what they vote for.

The most innovative and thought provoking recording will be embedded in the Jaago Zara track & will be part of the officially released song!

Here’s what you need to do in simple steps:

1. Think what you’re gonna say. The format we recommend is: “I vote for _”. Fill the space with whatever you wanna vote for.

Some examples:  “I Vote for My Guitar”, “I Vote for Music”, “I Vote for Peace”, “I Vote for No Smoking”, “I Vote for Beer”……

2. Write it down on a piece of paper so that you don’t forget.

3. Now record it in your phone/PC/laptop/home studio/professional studio. Make sure the words are heard clearly and there is no other background noise. The better the quality of recording, the easier for us to convince our sound engineer to use it in the song.

4. Save the recorded file in .mp3 or .wav format.

5. Send the file to contact@highway61.in with the subject: “Jaago Zara – Let your voice be heard!” (without the quotes)

6. Remember to mention your full name and city you are from in the mail.

That’s it!

We’ll select the best entries and put them in the song. And you’ll be able to hear yourself in the song when we release it!

Send in your entries before the 27th of September 2010.

Disclaimer: This is not a singing competition!

So what are you waiting for… start recording! Let your voice be heard!

Music – Expression – Freedom 

\m/