Playing a new role

Bollywood star Dalip Tahil will make his musical debut with a full-fledged live band at a concert in SoBo

We enter an old apartment building in Santacruz and make our way to a jam pad located at the far end of the ground floor, negotiating a guard dog we have been warned about. The band we are there to listen to is finishing the last bars of Knocking on Heaven's Door as we stand outside the door waiting for the song to end. Once it does, we enter a tiny space with hardly any room to move. But it's slick, state of the art, in fact. It is, after all, where the legendary Louiz Banks rehearses, and we settle into a chair right opposite the piano where he's seated. Next to him, his son, Gino, is towering over a set of drums. To our right, there is Avishek Dey on the bass and Kush Upadhyay on guitar, two promising young city musicians. And the person who was singing the Bob Dylan classic as we waited outside — Dalip Tahil — is now to our immediate left, our knees occasionally grazing against each other's due to the lack of space. They are all gearing up for the actor's first ever live gig with a full-fledged band. And we are there to dig deeper into this exploration of his musical side.

But first, we listen to the outfit — named Soul2Soul — go through the motions with Feel, by Robbie Williams. It's one of those songs that start out low. But then the music builds up and rises to such an extent that if the human voice were an elevator, it would reach the top floor of a high-rise. Tahil's voice is a raspy one that's soaked in whiskey. It's more suited to the initial stanzas of the track where the elevator, to extend the metaphor, is still climbing up the first few floors. But he eventually does get to the top of the building with a little help from his friends. And then he waltzes through Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, the last song they rehearse.

Back to the '90s

These three songs give us an understanding of what the concert at the Royal Opera House this weekend will entail. This is how the show is going to pan out. Tahil will take the stage first with the band, singing straight-up retro classics that take the listener back to an era of bellbottoms. Then, after a brief interval, Shweta Shetty — the Indipop star from the '90s — will take over the vocal responsibilities to recreate some of her best-known hits, making it a comeback of sorts to performing live. The seeds of this performance, Tahil later tells us, were planted three months ago when he and Shetty were at a common friend's party, which was a musical soiree in effect. The duo had such a great time singing impromptu that Shetty proposed that they crystallise their unplanned jam into a more formal affair, and that's where Banks and the band stepped in since Tahil and the pianist have collaborated earlier for staged musicals.

Musicals, in fact, have been the actor's only tryst with organised singing so far. He has even performed at London's West End in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-directed Bombay Dreams, for which AR Rahman was the composer. This concert, though, is meant to be a baby step in a journey where the aim is for Soul2Soul to go on regular tours as a well-knit band. "We are just testing the waters," Tahil tells us, adding that the initial idea was for the act to play an intimate, interactive set at a much smaller performance area. But that plan got scrapped late in the day due to unforeseen reasons. And the musicians have thus been fighting against time to adjust to the increase in scale of performing at the city's grandest musical venue, though Tahil says that things should pan out fine.

Testing it out

But there is one question that we feel we must ask him. At a time when music writers have coined the term "vanity pop" — referring to people like Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar trying their hand at music and thus eating up space that less privileged, but more talented independent artistes might have deserved more — what does Tahil feel about being possibly bracketed under that same label? The star actor is frank with his answer. "Look, this thing of saying that you're privileged and therefore you're doing music is, I think, really unfair. Whether it's Farhan Akhtar or anyone else, everybody has the right to express themselves in whatever creative language they feel like. Yeah, I certainly have an advantage in the sense that I know Louiz Banks. But believe me, it's been a struggle for both Shweta and I. It's not that people are falling over backwards to listen to me. And the most important thing is that, in the end, music is a space where the audience has the final call regardless of who you are. Also, yes, there are advantages in life. But do you want someone who has those advantages to throw them away? If I have a decent toilet, will I go and release myself outside? It might seem unfair to people, but that's how the world is. I come from a modest background and have worked all my life. I have also sung on stage for someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber. So, I have earned it and why shouldn't I start a band? But, let's be clear about one thing. It's the audience that decides. You're in such an unforgiving zone as a singer that if you're not good enough, get ready for stale vegetables being thrown in your direction. And my own test is on Saturday. That's when I'll find out."

ON May 11, 7.30 pm
AT Royal Opera House, Mama Parmanand Marg, Girgaum
LOG ON TO insider.in
ENTRY Rs 300 onwards

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