Yeah, the title is a giveaway!
Saw the Hindi movie "Rock On" last night with the cousins. A movie with a difference about four guys from a college rock band, going their separate ways, then reuniting after a decade for a concert. There seem to be more and more of these beat movies coming out from Bollywood recently. Kudos to these guys!
This movie will probably strike a "chord" with guys/gals in the mid thirties, who went to colleges 10-15 years ago, with college cultural festivals, where there would be a rock concert competition of sorts!
This post is not a review of the movie. It is more about the nuances of the film and a possible "genre" and its appeal.
If you are not a rock music fan and the subtle or open references to Metallica, Enter Sandman, Beatles, Lennon, McCartney, Ono, Green day, Deep purple etc., do not ring any bells, do not be alarmed. You will experience the movie, as a window to a "world" that is mesmerizing! Music, at the end of the day is a really, really powerful medium, that cuts across boundaries, rather large boundaries.
If you grew up listenting to rock music, this movie provides more than a refreshing look at music, rock, concerts, group dynamics, the experience of attending a rock concert! To top things off, if you happened to dedicate your Ph.D. thesis to Bob Dylan, the way "Rock On" has songs that fit hindi words into hard rock, at places, with a folk ballad style, will just bring tears to your eyes.
The nostalgia alone, will be worth this movie. You have to hand it to the director, music directors and the actors. They are able to hit long dormant neurons, and revive them, just by touching your subconsious in one too many places. Take for example the focus on the tattoo in the back of one of the groups lead singer's neck, or the Bille Joe Armstrong look alike, who strums his guitar in similar fashion from one of the competing groups in the final contest!
Farhan Aktar was fantastic. Arjun Rampal was even better. Have never seen such a controlled acting performance from him. They even mimic Freddie and May in some shots where they both share the microphone on stage. You can hear "smoke on the water", slowed down to a barely recognizable tempo in the background! They have condensed, and fed rock music to the masses, within the space of a movie. Very nicely done!
The thing I liked most was how they picturized the audience in a rock concert. At the end of the day, the question from a non rock fan would be "why go to a concert and hear the same thing that you heard over and over again in the music CD?". The answer lies, in the audience. To this day, I cannot forget the tens of thousands of people, with lighters and candles moving their hands across, in a Pink Floyd concert in Philadelphia, in 1994. To sum up that experience:
I was there!!!
After watching the movie, we came home and are now revisiting my 200 strong CD collection from my college days, which have been moved from one apartment to another, one home to the next for the last 15 years! We have not really played anything from that collection, at least after our first daughter was born. Finally feel vindicated for refusing to sell that collection over all these years.
Every one of those CD's has a history and it makes me remember places, people, crowds, songs, and more importantly myself!
Rock on, woke up a dormant part of me, much like it did for the protogonist in the movie.
ps. Spent an hour searching for the Pink Floyd concert ticket stub in my old shoebox. Could not find it! Way too many memorabilia in that box....dangerous memorabilia! The location of the shoe box within the house, was classified information in itself, now it is out in the open. Much fun will be had, over the coming days with the contents of the shoe box.
pps. San's rock music education has begun!
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Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 11:59PM 