BANGALORE: ‘Something like an underground shadow player in hard South Indian music’ — is how Parousia, a progressive or classical rock band from Bangalore describes itself. The word Parousia is a Greek word which means ‘the second coming’. In the last five years of their existence they claim to have done a little bit of everything from being appreciated critically to losing their plot, completely from disappearing underground to resurfacing, not once but twice.Parousia, is an amalgamation of personalities from various bands, and the influence and the musical brilliance that each of them bring to the band was visible from their performance at Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday. The band consists of Bryan Richards on bass guitar/ backing vocals, Joe on the drums, Jason Zacharaiah on the keyboards/backing vocals, Ranjit Abraham on lead vocals and Naveen Thomas Joseph on guitars and managing the band. They are all proud of their musical heritage which is truly justified as the members come from some of India’s best pro and semi bands like Molotov Cocktail, Angel Dust, Still Waters, TAAQ, Extinct Reflections, Galeej Gurus, Caesar’s Palace.“We work in other bands but we come together as a band here to perform music which we can not in other bands. It is all about pushing the boundaries, musically. The other bands that we work with are to an extent individualistic and material oriented, but in and as Parousia we try and make things work together, we push the music we love most — hard guitar driven music, with melodic vocals and progressive overtones,” said Naveen.Their influences are Dream Theater, Spocks Beard, Neal Morse, Andy Timmons, Steve Vai, Kansas, Winger, John Elefante, Magdallan, Toto, Whitesnake, Pain of Salvation, Symphony X, Queensryche, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree, Shadow Gallery etc. “We all listen to and are inspired by bands which have distinct style and come from various genres. We love Toto, Dream Theatre and Whitesnake, amongst the international bands, in list of Indian bands we really Pentagram and Mother Jane”, added Naveen.Their play list for the evening consisted of songs from niche bands like Whitesnake to Journey as well as the popular ones by Bon Jovi and Europe. They played Fool for your loving by Whitesnake, Higher place by Journey, Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, Falling in Between by Toto, Final Countdown by Europe, Kindred by Liquid Tension etc. The audience did take some time getting used to their music, as the applause and appreciations increased as the band moved on to popular songs from the niche ones.“I liked their music and style of play, overall. I liked the variety in their play list though it did take some time getting used to. Towards the end we really started enjoying ourselves”, said Joe from the Netherlands. The band was pretty tight and they made an effort to make sure people from varied musical taste enjoy their performance. They rocked the place from the word go and there never was a moment which could be termed mellow. The musical arrangement was complex and there was a lot of vocal base stuff.“We loved it. It was absolutely brilliant performing here”, said Ranjit, after the performance.
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