Deafening sounds! Laser lights! Cameras all over place! Teens hopping up and down like jack rabbits! This was the scene that MTV created for its Just Grind bash. The show took place at Mikanos on 11 July.
The show saw around 1800 people in attendance. Sonik Gurus' DJ Khushboo, Dum Dum Project's DJ Cavo and Shiv Sound Systems Nerm represented the music group Swaraj. The aim was to give party happy music buffs a taste of the latest sounds emanating from the club scene in the UK and US.
While the show certainly was a hit with the people on the dance floor there were noticeable moments when they had difficulty getting into the rhythemic beat of the music and thus stopped moving altogether at times. This could be attributed to the fact that the exposure of Indians to underground sounds is severely limited.
DDP kicked things off with bhangra tunes, which as expected got a huge response. Cavo shrewdly introduced hip-hop into the mix in a seamless manner. Rarely has one heard music with such a consistently heavy drumbeat. Admittedly at times because of the excessively high volume the constant thumping did grate on ones nerves.
A major plus of the evening were the laser lights especially the green ones, which emanated above the DJ's desk.
They moved around the room at times in brilliant sync with the music thus creating a hallucinatory effect.
Cavo also did his best to interact with the movers and shakers and managed to create a reasonable level of crowd commotion with the "I say hey you say Ho" thing. Cavo however faded at the end when he tried to introduce electronic sounds. The crowd got lost and didn't seem to follow the point and direction of the music. At times the last tune sounded as if different sounds were just thrown into the mix to see what would happen.
 Milind Soman lets it hang loose at the MTV Grind bash |
Live music came in the form of the Sonik Gurus DJ Khushbhoo who introduced the Trio. Two of them had drums and therefore the beat became more eclectic. The guitar and keyboards were also able to create a variety of sounds such as the wail of a police siren. Two screens on either side of the dance floor gave people a chance to see themselves on the telly. The show was hosted by MTV VJs Anusha and Nikhil Chinapa. All in all this was a pretty good show by MTV and one is sure that if events such this one happen on a regular basis then the appreciation by Indians of different kinds of fused music will grow.
