A night with the Workshop

“In case any of the songs, jokes, or other repartee offends you, then that’s really not our problem. If you can’t take some jokes, then you really shouldn’t be here.” Following a warning that sounds something like that, the Workshop gets to work.


A little back-story first. I happened to read photocritic’s post on concert photography, and after seeing the photos on his website, I was itching to give it a shot.

When my brother told me that his friend’s band had recently got an album out and that they were performing in various places around the city, I decided to get out the camera and give it a whirl. After all, what better opportunity than this?

I’m not much of a rock buff, or even music buff for that matter, but what I heard on the album which bro purchased had a good ring to it. What particularly caught my eye was the use of our regular Indian dialogues and other fare as names for songs. So off it was concert.

The first thing that hits you when the workshop come on stage is that fact that they are dressed like they are at a workshop. Complete with overalls (please correct me if I got this term wrong) and bright yellow protective helmets. A few test shots at the venue to check for lighting (that was me testing btw, not the band, they did some sound checks).

If they sing a particular genre of rock, I wouldn’t really know, but if I had to give it a name, I’d call it humour rock. And attending the performance bought me back to my school days, with all the double entendre. They’ve got one album out, and all songs are right out of that one. A thing I liked was that they don’t do covers, only their stuff. Thumbs up there. The humour is not just in the songs, its on stage as well. In fact, you will be forgiven if you walked into a performance between songs and thought you walked into a stand-up comedy routine. Another thumbs up. They even had this part where each of them ’show-off’ their ‘instrumental’ skills with short solo performances. I liked that part too.

Now for the songs. Since their album has something for everyone, quite literally (there’s a song in the most popular Indian language, as well as the not so popular Indian language, aka english). Personal favourites include ‘Phude Sarka’ (inspired by the famous marathi dialogue, oft heard in buses as well as trains) and ‘She folked up my jazz’ (warning, singing this song near your current girlfriend could be hazardous to your health).

Other warnings: Do not attend their concert with your kids. Sure the ‘explicit content’ might be bad for your kids if you were a parent, but it would be even worse if your kids caught the ‘meanings’ before you did.

Verdict: Well, I’m not really qualified to talk about music, but I enjoyed the performance. Stay away if you are an uptight music person, or worse, an uptight rock person. As for me… \m/

Links to the band: Myspace, Facebook.

The three guitarists

Beating down the drums

Old skool guitaring

Into the song

Check out the rest of the set here.