...Continuation...

And so we are hurried inside to a posh looking joint called ‘@ Restaurant’ where the guys from MTV are waiting for us rather restlessly inside; sports a pretty sweeeeet setting… Christmas decorations fill the place and lots of rather familiar and not/so familiar faces looking our way. It takes awhile for the whole thing to envelope the five of us. After some introductions and a request for us to wear Christmas Santa Hats for the MTV Select Christmas Special we are ushered towards an area where we are to be seated. There’s no time you see… so the plan was to shoot all the pieces for the show lightening fast; one after the other.

So the whole thing was just off the cuff; questions asked spontaneously… There was no time to brief them about us, save for the bit they’d read… and so we sit looking at Nikhil Chanappa of MTV Select Fame and the cameras start rolling, some mighty fine talent glare at us like hawks and the questions start coming. It all goes fine and then in the last part of the show the VJ poses a challenge that despite us being an extreme metal band, if we could jam one of our tunes ‘stripped down’ and acoustic. Nothing like being put in a spot eh? So we say ‘yeah no problem providing there’s a decent guitar’ and Tenny tunes it; while the camera’s roll and we do a rendition of ‘Lucid’; which after the VJ says ‘I’ve definitely gotta check you guys out live!!!’

So that’s done and we finally meet our usher in Delhi; he’s name is Shashank and looks like a cool dude. He escorts us in the vehicle with the same lunatic driver and it’s a bit much for us to stomach when he points and shows us the venue. Central Park, Conaught Place, New Delhi. It’s a Mammoth Open-amphitheater with a lush, perfectly maintained environment. I mean the place in its entirety was gargantuan.

I believe the common expressions at the time were ‘Ammmata Hikeeeeyyy…’

After been cleared inside we are taken backstage, we are shown our respective changing area and meet a lot of people; including the man who coordinated the event and everything for us so far… He comes out and hugs us and welcomes us and being overwhelmed by it all the idea would have been to subjugate us with a shock factor first… No go… Our guys are already looking at the stage… evaluating the equipment and something isn’t right. In fact something is very, very wrong. The thing was the stage design and the lights made it look absolutely HUGE… Like any international event. Problem was this was an interesting gimmick, a flamboyant veil that masked the true calamity that was ON STAGE.

So where were the sounds they promised? Where were the Marshal JCM-150 Stacks that were promised on the contract? Why the fuck was that… Oh that’s the drum… With 2 Crashes and One Hi-hat… What? Nope… What the FUCK!!!

So we take it up with them and they utter some incoherent bullshit about doing 35 events in One Day and that the biggest bands in the continent were performing with these sounds. One thing led to another and after a few interviews we are told that we have to start the gig; in a few minutes. What? It’s like 5.00 something… The contract stated 8-9pm… Apparently there’s been a change of plans and we HAD to get on stage, check pretty fucking fast – mind you a good 3-4 thousand people were scattered all over and eagerly waiting to watch something for the day. And audiences are fairly lukewarm to opening acts; isn’t that a historical fact?

After a heated verbal assault from either party, we realize that we don’t even have time to change for the gig. But we were geared for the worst – like always… So it was a totally vintage, classic Thrash/Death Metal look… Jeans, Boots, T’s… We thought ‘fuck it’ we’ve had so much tragedy up to this point, it was pointless backing out now.

Now these guys had managed to evade issues of the payment and we didn’t pursue it too much because it was an International Event organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Council for Cultural Relations… so we figure… One artiste from each country… Government event… There’s been a few fuck-ups but they’d be pro when it came to the transaction and business side of things.

We were wrong.

After a LOT of pushing before going on stage, one of the organizers said she’d look into organizing an advance for us. I mean we’d landed in another country and so far had been true ‘victims of changes’. It was about 6-7 degrees now and we were so fired up, the cold didn’t matter now… ‘Cos we were pretty pissed off.

Rule no.1 on hiring a Metal Band:

1) You piss off anyone… but don’t go pissing off a Metal Band… there’d be hell to pay. And there was. Hell that is.

There’s something that’s gotta be said for pre-gig charge ups. Stigmata always performs at its most violent and vicious whenever we’ve been pissed off… and this ain’t Heavy Metal Rule Book clichés. It’s true. Ask anyone who’s seen us through the years or just knows us. We are driven anyways… Don’t need anger to fuel our psyche and emotions… but thing is, when a million things go wrong and we are pitted against a storm… We don’t run away.

We go Jackie Chan on the tempest. How’s that for a grease-ball rock ‘n roll parody tune?

‘We go Jackie Chan on the tempest’…

We are contacted by a dear, dear friend who herself is studying in India and had taken a 17 hour train to Delhi with a friend; just to watch us play. She’d been longer on a train than we’d traveled so far from country to country. That was some commitment… that was some support. That really motivated us.

We met up with them before getting on stage and handed her Andrew’s DVD Camera to film the gig. We met the Sound Engineer and I quickly briefed him about our sound and how we’d like the drums, with a razor click to landscape and carry the bludgeon of the guitars.

Bludgeon my ass! On stage things were a lot worse than it looked. But no one except those on stage would know this. To everyone else, from outside it looked like Rio! The amps were shitty, corroded and at least 300 years old by the looks of its tattered, worn-out state. There were no footswitches. Now we asked them if we were to bring our amps; Peavey’s with a crushing sound and we figured due to duty at the airport and clearance issues they asked us not to.

Unfuckingprofessional…

So while our guys were setting up the Organizer/Coordinator takes me to a corner and tells us to not take it personally but that Heavy Metal audiences are mainly in the University areas and that this is Central Delhi where it’s the metropolitan for shopping etc., and that chances are that people won’t really dig us or our stuff. He told me to remember the experience and the fact that we were there in the Festival for the ‘DIVERSITY’.

That was the proverbial nail in the coffin.
So I get back on stage and what do you know – Tenny’s got a sound that’s equivalent to a Rhino farting, Andrew’s pissed off but ok… Vije doesn’t look happy and Jacky had a cold, stone stare that would have scared off the most grotesque black metaller from Scandinavia.

Yeps… Everyone was pissed off.

And since it was a government event; there was no booze; it was fucking freezing remember? And there was no one who could get some good weed.

Cartman would be pissed off too.

The Sound Engineer; ‘Sanjiv’ was his name, if I am not mistaken did an unbelievable job. He got an incredible sound of the bat-shit that was there… And we sounded Heavy… Unmercifully. Couldn’t have asked for more…

Stigmata unleash ‘Andura’ and my fucks I remember thinking ‘There are a shit-load of people upfront… Hectic!!!’ then we crash-head on into ‘My Malice’… By the time we play ‘The Summoning Cry of Aries’ there’s a pit brewing. Then we play ‘Solitude’ and get a LOT of people going psycho to ‘Spiral Coma’ which slayed that evening. Now… It was sunset… Despite there being lights carving subtle and illustrative shades of ambience, the deep scarlet, crimson glow of the sunset settled all around the amphitheater… If that wasn’t a snapshot in time to never forget, I don’t know what is.

Down to the last two tunes. Believe me when I tell you that what was witnessed and experienced after this is something that was a phenomenon for us… It was majestic and totally unfuckingREAL.

We played a medley of ‘If Alpha Meets Omega’ combined with our usual closer ‘March of the Saints’… It was here that I felt a true Out of the Body Experience for the first time in my 24 years…

In one part of ‘March…’ I stopped… Just stopped breathing… Stopped moving… I could feel my heart galloping ‘The Trooper’ gallop inside my chest… I opened my eyes… It was fucking spiritual.

As far as my eyes could see were people… To my right… To my left… Right before me… There were a good thousand something people in the Pit… But there were so many faces – unclear – but the energy that kept riding on the cool, evening winds was raw…

It didn’t matter who you were or where you were from… Everyone was watching… Everyone was listening. It was powerful… It was the purest thing next to a multiple orgasm. :>

There were a good 15, 000 people – at least or easily more – and they were appreciating a foreign band which let's face it was relatively new to MANY of them. We fed off that energy.

So I decide towards the end of ‘March…’ that there is no fucking way the folk back home are ever gonna believe this… So I spot our friend with the DVD Cam and I ask it from her… There’s a barricade, stopping the audiences from coming too close to the stage and in it are Cops.

Now they refuse to hand me the camera, and finally one guy (an organizer) grabs it from her and hands it to me… We are reaching the ultra anti-climax/climax bit in ‘March…’ and so while performing the track I video the crowd… Everyone for as long as I can… Even to the far, far, far distance. I could see Giant Screens mounted right at he back for the people who couldn’t see the stage.

It was a Heavy Metal Orgasm. And we loved it.

So we have the footage, ,like a total exclusive Official Bootleg; so the sounds aren’t too great but it’s audible. The footage by far is pretty spot on and it captures the intensity. So we are going to transfer it onto DVD format and see what we can do… Maybe release it as an Official Bootleg along with some interviews, practice sessions and other performance clips from 2007. MTV and the Organizers videoed it too, but I doubt we’ll have any claim to that footage.

2007 was a year of triumph, of sorrow, failure, battles – some won, some lost-, wounds, understanding, learning, loss, gain, joy, great sex, great success with the Band and overall pretty OK… 2008 will surely evoke more demons, for every year doesn’t the cross get heavier and heavier?

Suffering is a part of learning… Learning is our choice… Our choices shouldn’t be based on trends, hype, mania, philosophies and theories… We shouldn’t be afraid to bleed… For we are all wrought from flesh and bone… Aren’t we?

‘Peel the Flesh Off My Bone…’ someone once said I am trying to think who...

We wanna thank everyone who has inspired and touched us throughout 2007, and I wanna wish you all a kickass season... Our buddies in India... Sometimes the muse is everywhere... Or just all around... And many of you inspire me to write as I do. So Have a great one.

Whips and Rock 'n Roll :>