Bruce Lee Mani and Rzhude David reunite for an intimate acoustic set in Chennai

Sixteen years is agelong capable for bands to dissolve, careers to change, and musicians to drift apart. Next week successful Chenai, musicians and ex-band mates, Bruce Lee Mani and Rzhude David volition marque their mode backmost connected the aforesaid stage, closing a region that past opened successful 2010.

“Rzhude  and I past played unneurotic successful 2010. It’s been sixteen years since we stood connected signifier arsenic bandmates,” says Bruce. When they reunited earlier this twelvemonth for an acoustic show successful Bengaluru, the easiness of the collaboration amazed them both, mounting the people for what followed. 

The show, portion of Scarlet Nights astatine the Alliance Française of Madras, is deliberately stripped down. Two musicians, acoustic instruments, and a acceptable that moves betwixt older material, newer compositions written unneurotic and independently, and a tiny enactment of covers. “It’s antithetic for america to to bash an acoustic gig,” helium says. 

Behind Scarlet Nights is Pro Musicals, a sanction much often associated with euphony exertion than unrecorded performance. For laminitis Sudhin Prabhakar, however, the bid marks a instrumentality to an earlier impulse. “This is truly astir bringing euphony backmost to centre stage. Not the sponsor, not the lighting, not the flash astir it. Just the music,” helium says. 

Sudhin himself, a instrumentalist who played successful Chennai bands done the 1980s and 1990s, traces the thought backmost to concerts helium helped organise years agone astatine the Museum Theatre. These shows were mounted without sponsorship, driven mostly by persistence and goodwill. Scarlet Nights, helium says, draws from the aforesaid instinct. “We didn’t hold for sponsors then. We conscionable did it. That’s the tone we wanted to bring back.” 

The 150-seat Edouard Michelin Auditorium astatine the Alliance Française of Madras offers an intimacy that larger spaces dilute. “It’s the close size for acoustic music. There’s obscurity to fell for the musicians oregon the audience,” says Sudhin. The dependable system, installed by Pro Musicals, is designed to service clarity alternatively than volume, allowing the show to enactment unembellished.

While the performance is escaped to attend, the evening is not without structure. The show volition beryllium professionally recorded utilizing Focusrite equipment, portion of an effort to show however unrecorded performances tin construe into high-quality recordings extracurricular accepted workplace settings. “We besides privation artists to spot however they tin grounds astatine home. Live show and location studios don’t person to beryllium separately anymore,” helium says.  

The recordings volition beryllium archived, not released immediately, a deliberate decision. “We privation radical to travel out, beryllium successful a country together, and perceive again.” Scarlet Nights is envisioned arsenic a monthly series, each variation centred connected musicians with experience. “We’re not a level for first-time performers. We privation people, particularly younger musicians, to spot what’s imaginable if you enactment astatine it. You don’t aspire to thing you’ve ne'er seen,” says Sudhin. 

Scarlet Nights, hosting Bruce Lee Mani and Rzhude David, is connected astatine the Alliance Française of Madras connected Februrary 5, from 7.30pm. Entry is escaped with mandatory registration connected promusicals.com.