Junkyard Groove Concert, 17 November 2009, HRC Mumbai

WHO: Junkyard Groove

WHERE: Hard Rock Cafe, Worli, Mumbai

WHEN: 17 November 2009, Tuesday

It’s always fun to see Junkyard Groove play. Not only is their music light on the ear in a Goo Goo Dolls-esque way, but they’re a fun band with their stage antics and presence. Their gig at Hard Rock Cafe on the 17th had plenty of both, but left you feeling that the teeny stage restrcited the total Junkyard Live experience.

Junkard Groove are from down South, Chennai. In 2005, Ameeth Thomas, Siddharth Srinivasan, Craig Maxworth and Jerry John got together and their music had an instant flavour to it. Not too heavy to scare some people away, but not too light to still keep the headbangers in. Ameeth’s total reliance on the acoustic guitar for the rhythm section has added a folksy, easy jing to the whole sound. Couple this with the fact that he’s got a smooth, funky voice which is not out of place doing Pearl Jam covers. It’s not a voice suited for darker stuff, but complements JYG’s happy, folksy sound perfectly. Of course, it also helps that he’s pretty inebriated most of the time.

Siddharth as a guitarist has styled himself on Slash and is incredibly talented. Smooth licks, lightning fast fingers, and - let’s face it - that mop of hair make this man one to watch out for. Maynard, Junkyard’s new drummer, isn’t as wild as Jerry used to be, but he brings up the rear very nicely along with Craig, who is also a more-than-decent backing vocalist.

On to the gig now. Junkyard have been gracing the northern part of the Vindhyas for a while now, but I was fortunate enough to catch them only on the 17^th. I’ve seen them multiple times when they were en route to rock superstardom in Chennai, and I was very impressed by many things, not the least their musical ability. They were an electric live band, Ameeth frequently gigged without his shirt off (conservative Chennai, did I hear someone say?), considered it a sin to take to stage sober and once even fell off the stage, only to jump right back up as if nothing more than a mosquito bite had happened.

The usual Junkyard setlist – Imagine, Rock n Roll, Call My Name, Let You Go, Been So Long (which had some lovely experimentative sounds by Sid and muted slap bass by Craig), Folk You (their signature sing-along track with it’s ultra-catchy Na-na-neee chorus) and Twinkle Twinkle. Post the break and YMCA, they came back with some more signature tunes, including the much-awaited It’s Okay and Hold, which I believe has one of the most jaw-dropping guitar solos by an Indian guitarist.

They also claimed to write a song called Enter Sandy… Apparently, a certain LA-based metal band had ripped off the song from them and gotten famous. The sad joke held pretty poor water since the Black Album was released in 1991, and Junkyard Groove were formed in 2005, and 14 years seems to be an awful long time to not bring up plagiarism issues, maybe JYG could take some lessons?

The sound at HRC that day seemed to be a little off. I couldn’t hear Siddharth properly, and the bass seemed muddy and overpowering. Or maybe it was just the angle at which I was standing, perhaps.

JYG didn’t have their signature stage presence and you couldn’t help but feeling they felt restricted by the elevation of the HRC stage and the teeny stage (I’ve seen Ameeth go wild over college stages). But then, I hear they’d played before at this venue and were visibly more energetic. They couldn’t complain of a lack of fans either, the turnout was quite impressive. Also heartening to see was the fact that there were quite a few people who knew their songs (if not anything, atleast the hooks to their famous songs) and there were no idiots yelling for covers (a fact that cheesed off the band in Chennai when I saw them once there, during the IMS JamCAT 06)

By the way, you can get JYG’s music here. Too bad they don’t have an Indian debit card option, too many bands make this mistake.

Good gig, could have been better with clearer sound and a little more stage energy. JYG are on the threshold of making it big and here’s hoping that they do and continue to be the madmen that they are.

Deepak Gopalakrishnan aka Chuck is a social media professional who gorges on PG Wodehouse, jigsaw puzzles, Iron Maiden, Oasis and cricket.  He tries to draws incessant observations on everything in life from auto drivers to bartenders. Atleast he tries to. He blogs atwww.chroniclesofdementia.blogspot.com and tweets (like a maniac) atwww.twitter.com/chuck_gopal