Vir Das’ Alien Chutney and Imaad Shah’s Madboy Mink gave the perfect head start to the Enchanted Valley Carnival
The long, winding sun-kissed hills of lonavla led one to a music wonderland called the Enchanted Valley Carnival. Till about a decade ago, the EDM fans would have to travel far and wide, often outside their city to attend gigs and this event was reminiscent of the zeal back then.
Spread across the Ambay Valley airfield complete with a camp, adventure site, the carnival spanning over three days was host to 60 artists including bigwigs — David Guetta, New World Punk, Aly and Fila and a swarm of a rather genteel crowd.
Getting used to walking from one performance arena to another in the staggering vast tracts of the Valley was quite a task but worth the work-out. The plus was no pushing or shoving, stamping on others feet and then offering profuse apologies. There was place to breathe, engage in some wild drumming around a campfire, sit under the shade of numerous billboards when the sun got too harsh, to run-around, to not drop your drinks on others heads.
On the second day, all the three stages — Analog, Artemis, Azbor — were alive with the performances by Alien Chutney, Madboy Mink, Dualist Inquiry, Shaa’ir and Func, Anish Sood and Grammy Award-winning DJ David Guetta.
Vir Das’ rock comedy band Alien Chutney stirred the crowd with their signature hilarious, on-point interactive set. Das in a plaid golf hat and a blue bow tie took over the stage saying, “The world is as beautiful as a Victoria’s Secret fashion show,” and got the crowd roaring.
On why the name Alien Chutney, Das said, “There’s no deep reason behind it. I asked the band what was the first word that came to their mind and one of them had seen the movie Species the night before so he said the word alien and the one who was eating the roll said chutney, so Alien Chutney. Now, I explain it by saying that it’s Indian, different and stupid. I write these stupid songs. It is just that we’ve got a good band to play them.”
The band initially was a by-product of a production named Walking on Broken Das. “Kaizad and I used to get on the stage and do two songs at the end of the show and everyone said they liked those songs. It had been many years since I’d been in a band. I used to be in a cover band in college. We then got Sid Coutti as the drummer, Gaurav Gupta as the guitarist, so it took us two years to form the band,” he shared.
The band played their new tracks Abki Baar, 90s Kiss among others including their own renditions of Daft Punk’s Get lucky and even Swedish House Mafia. “90s Kiss is about my first kiss in the 90s. We’ve got a song called I’m a Man With a Foreign Accent because women like men with foreign accents. Then there is 50-Something Foreplay, which is about what your parents are doing while you’re here for the carnival,” Das said with a smirk.
Das shared that he would rather have an audience of 5,000 people come watch his show or spend money on tickets for the his movie than buying an album online or pirating it.
The actor/comedian is also busy with his largest comedy show in the country called Weirdass Pajama Festival slated for January 24, 25, 26 in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
“We will be doing 120 shows in three days. The closing show for the festival will see me, Anupam Kher, Vijay Raaz, Suresh Menon and Vinay Pathak, about 15 Bollywood funny men coming together to honour Johnny lever. He’s the greatest comedy influence in my life,” Das told us.
Das preferred to be labelled only as as a performer. “Sitting in a vanity van for two months is infuriating and coming out and doing a live stand-up comedy show is humbling, grounding and fun. But then again travelling for two months in a year and staying at hotels is also not fun so being in a vanity van feels kind of nice. Alien Chutney is vulgar, stupid fun. To me it’s like going to the gym, where you just dance and have a good time,” said Das.
Next was Madboy Mink (Imaad Shah and Saba Azad) jamming on the live stage with their quirky song Taste Your Kiss which was a mash up of the 20s Harlem swing style music with the 70s funk from their EP album All Ball. Imaad shared, “Madboy is my solo producer act and Mink is her solo act, so it’s like a collaboration,” whereas Saba told us, “Audio Pervert, who is my favourite producer in the country, used to call me Mink. So both of us unanimously decided it as the name of our band.”
Imaad added, “Plus a Mink is a little squirrel and she is like one.” Imaad went on to explain his music, “We say that it is our kind of music and it’s not really adhering to any specific genre. It’s not funk, disco, jazz or elctro. We take influences out of them and filter them. We describe it as high energy electronic dance music but rooted in old school funk and jazz.”
With regard to the mixed reception that they received from the audience, Imaad said that the audience is still warming up to it. “I feel they need time to understand the sound. Our band is new and different and we do our own music — something that makes us dance and groove.”
“If you listen to any other EDM track, it has a familiar sound. But this sound is new, it is us and not any other genre. Hearing it for the first time can leave you perplexed and make you think what it is. If you happen to like it, it’s great and if not then we are simply having a party on the stage.” The band will release another EP album in the next month or two.
