Them Clones Live @ Hardrock Cafe

What: Them Clones Album Launch (Love. Hate. Heroes.) concert

Where: Hard Rock Cafe, Mumbai

When: 20 October 2009, Tuesday

\Before I start off, let me confess that I’m not a massive Them Clones fan. Yes, they’re an extraordinary live band, they’re very tight, and have a very nice RATM-meets-Green Day-hate-lyrics-sound and if Indian bands were to make it big, the Clones would be one of the guys to hit it off. That said, I’m not ‘kicked’ at the prospect of the Clones. They don’t give me the ‘ooh-yeah’ factor of some other bands.

I hoped, then, that I would be proved terribly wrong when I went to see these guys at Mumbai’s Hard Rock Cafe. Unfortunately, I came out of the gig even more disillusioned - the Clones seemed sloppy, bereft of their signature electric stage presence and seemed to take a massively long break between gig innings (So sue me, I’m a cricket fan).

The Clones got on stage (after the traditional HRC YMCA dance, of course) without much fanfare or introduction, I was actually wondering if it were another opening band. The Clones are a friendly lot, they mingled quite a bit with the crowd and their acquaintances before getting on, though you can’t help suspecting these were record label members. Prithwish, the lead singer was his usual smiling self, and could be spotted with his drink walking all over the place, chatting up with his crowd.

Most innovative songs I’ve seen from an Indian band, In The Name Of God, with its looped Bushian speech in the background, kicked off the night to an audience that had got tired of the usual 80s pop-rock that the DJ blared out. Which brings me to a very good point made by a friend, why is the music played different from the videos shown on the TV? Doesn’t seem to make too much sense. I digress again.

Then came the rest of the album - Walk Away, a slightly heavier track, was well played, and at this point one table in the audience felt the need to felicitate their birthday boy. Could do with a little better timing. This also seemed to spark off birthday celebrations in atleast two other tables over the next half hour, a phenomenon not lost on Prithwish and gang.

Pritwish is regarded as one of India’s best vocalists and not without reason - the man can effortlessly move from lows to highs (sample the superb ‘Awaken’, and I was terribly disappointed not to see it being played). At the launch, however, he looked a little out of it, and didn’t seem to be putting in the effort he should have. Having mastered the art of making love to the mic stand and perfected the one-hand-on-stand-turned-towards-lead-guitarist-and-headbanging, Prithwish continued to belt out more numbers from their album, which they were launching. Five songs into the gig, the Clones were taking a break, leaving the audience with the video of the Bomb Song on the projector, which no one really cared about, to be honest (the projector, not the song). Another note here – the album itself, Love. Hate. Heroes., has quite a - well, for lack of another word - interesting cover! Check it out:

After the break, the Clones were considerably better. Horizon and Colour (all songs can be sampled here) kicked things off nicely. Then followed a bluesy song “for whiskey drinkers” whose name I cannot recall. All through the gig, Joseph Lalhmachhuana, the silent lead guitarist blazed away – although one couldn’t help but noticing that he tuned his guitars during songs a little too often. Ok, I’m nitpicking there, but otherwise a good performance by him to complement the Morrello-esque rhythm by Gucci Singh, and the lower end made up by drummer Surojit Dev and bassie Clarence Gonsalves.

Then came the song most people were waiting for – definitely the hardcore Cloners – My Life. Now, I never fathom what was so amazing about this song, but it still gets the same response from the crowd as Zero did for PSP 12”, and Motherjane did for Mindstreet. My Life also has one of the most slickly made (animated, no less), but ridiculous videos I’ve ever seen. Still, kudos for the effort from an Indian band. The night ended with a ‘rare, early’ song from the Clones – Wait For Me, and ended, in purple light, with One Way Through.

So, overall? I’ve definitely seen the Clones play better – I was up front when they played at my college, MICA last year, and was disappointed at the lack of energy. Also, the hardselling of the album was a definite put-off (despite the nice features – like a blank CD, and an unlocking code for 4 free songs from the net). We’ll buy the album if we want to, and statements like “I want everyone here today to go pick up a copy”, “Salesman, what are the figures, please?”, etc, just make us feel uncomfortable. Oh, and I still think Zephyretta is one of the most over-rated songs ever by an Indian band.

Overall, an okay gig, but we’ve come to expect so much more from the Clones, this was almost a half-hearted effort of a band who knows they have a loyal audience who will keep showing up.

And as a marketing professional who loves rock, it’d be unbecoming of me if I didn’t thank the people who made this possible – Adidas, and the nice people over at OML / Counter Culture Records.

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 at www.chroniclesofdementia.blogspot.com and tweets (like a maniac) at www.twitter.com/chuck_gopal.