An Experience

A fair amount of time has been spent on how to start this article. Several ideas as to how one wanted to approach it, what should be put in, the direction it should take and the direction it might eventually take.

This article is about the Dire Straits Experience, who had their debut concert last month, with the Seagram’s 100 Pipers Play for a Cause Movement. The name of the band was, for some people, a bit misleading. A lot of talk about it being a reproduction of music we are so familiar with. A copy paste if you will. The limiting thought of, ‘it could never be the same.’ Since they, the band, hadn’t come to India yet, these opinions, even if some of us disagree with them, were, on some level, understandable. So, let’s try and broaden that myopic outlook, shall we?

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It all began at the Westin, Gurugram. A press conference, with a little time for a tête-à-tête, with Chris White (sax, flute and percussion) and Terence Reis (lead vocals and guitar) representing the band, a day before their performance. The room was filled with a quiet anticipation. Most, not sure of what to expect. Soon after everyone had settled in, the two musicians made their way through. A slow, casual walk with a pleasant countenance. They came around and introduced themselves and in that moment, they weren’t musicians on a global tour, they just seemed like a couple of blokes happy to be where they were and eager to share with everyone what they had to offer.

At this point my mind started to race, all the expected research and prepared questions in front of me but somehow it felt like this was going to be more of just a conversation between people. A magnificent parallel, in my opinion, of what music, in itself, is able to achieve. An interaction, an exchange of thought, feeling and energy.

So, time came for the tête-à-tête, and the saree I was wearing helped break the ice. Terence Reis and Chris White joked about wanting to wear one and being able to pull it off which would undeniably have been quite a sight, that exchange, fortunately, swept away all nervousness. We sat ourselves down and off we went.

The interview began with the cause at hand, a percentage of the proceeds from the concert are to help in providing clean drinking water to seven different villages in Rajasthan. Chris White, the only one of the two who had visited India before, with “a backpack and a girlfriend” is familiar with the country but hadn’t, during his travels, been able to visit that region, so a clean slate of sorts for all of them. When asked about it Terence Reis mentioned, “we got a couple of people who contacted us about other villages…… we just can’t do more, I mean the sad truth of it is we have to fit this into the paradigm of what we’re doing….. This started as a charity, the band came together for that…. We’ve been running around doing something we love so much, to be able to attach it to something more is…..” Terence seemed to truly believe in the responsibility, as people, to give back. When asked about other humanitarian work he did, outside of the band, he paused and said, “I’ve got a few things….. lots of political hot beds there.”

“What we do is completely fan funded. There’s no sort of revenue stream other than from the shows and that, there’s a very attractive kind of purity to that. You know it’s a very simple exchange, we have the great privilege of doing what we love to do just as working musicians but we know the reason we get to do that is directly from the people who have wanted to see it. We’re not going out with Coca Cola or something stuck all over us…. Some people might say it is a devolutionary thing,” added Terence Reis.

From there we moved on to the music itself. Chris White, a saxophonist since the age of thirteen, talked about how his journey with the sax began first with jazz and the blues and then at some point moved into the world of pop and rock which he enjoyed thoroughly, “I love playing to songs, I love playing to lyrics and just being able to come up with something.” When asked what genre he considered himself to be a part of, he smiled, a little smile and said, “I’m just a sax player.”

An important question, for many people, when we talk about music and the consumable variety which seems to surround us all the time, the truth that “the arts are being decimated. It’s the last thing that governments give money to,” (Terence Reis), is where is it all headed? Chris White had a few, very hopeful and true words to say about that, “There is a grand swell now of new young bands, they aren’t mavericks, they aren’t making money, they don’t have budgets, but they are there because that’s what they do. And really that is what it always was. You did it because you had no choice. You don’t have a choice. You have to do it or you go mad….. More and more I am coming across, young people particularly, late teens, early 20s, who are starting to reject that very consumable stuff and looking for stuff which is saying something to them about their experiences in the world, cause it isn’t like it was for us, it’s a lot tougher.”

Now this is where we come to it, music, art that says something to us, something about our experiences in the world, that is what an experience, like the Dire Straits Experience is, at the end of the day. It is about music, which said something to those who play it and to those who showed up to experience it. And that purity extends to all art. A reality we tend to forget sometimes and not give too much credence to.

The concert, the following evening, was everything expected and more. Terence Reis took everyone’s breath away with his voice and skills with the guitar, Chris White stayed true to his art as did the rest of the band. Not only did they bring their own personalities to songs we have listened to time and time again and done more than justice to them but the solos, improvised between and during songs, were testament to the outstanding musicians the band is made of.

So, here is everyone wishing them a fantastic rest of the tour and hoping to find them on our shores in the near future. Bringing with them perhaps this and other experiences.