Papon and Nucleya: The Final ProShow

Papon@RevelsManipal

Day 4 of the highly vibrant and tumultuous Revels 2016 was the day every single individual of Manipal University was looking forward to with much enthusiasm. The ticket sales for the very last ProShow consisting of Papon and Nucleya was rumored to be in the 6000s, and as the hour drew close, the exhilaration and anticipation through Manipal was barely containable.

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At around 4:30 pm, people had started lining up at the KMC Greens gate in order to gain a privileged view of the ProShow artists. An hour later, the line had extended much beyond the KMC Food Court and during the time of entry, it was large enough to wind its way twice well past the KMC Girls’ Hostels. It was as though everyone wanted to be the first to catch a glimpse of Revels’ very first event ever at KMC Greens!

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Angaraag ‘Papon’ Mahanta took the stage with his band, The East India Company at 6:45pm to an utterly packed and cheerfully boisterous KMC Greens. There’s just something about the musicians from the North East that I haven’t been able to figure out yet that gives them this innate ability to be exceptionally talented at music. Papon and his band adhered completely to this stereotype.

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Papon and his band adhered completely to this stereotype. Papon’s relatable and good-humored persona and the band’s musical ability can only be aptly characterized as nothing short of amazing. They played a few catchy tunes of their own composition and asked the audience to join in to sing a particularly upbeat OC titled ‘Banao banao, right now’, which happens to be a song inspired by the mystics and sadhus of the himalayas endorsing smoking up. Angaraag disclaimed all credits for the message by saying that it was them who said it because they worshipped a deity who attained and endorsed peace by smoking marijuana. It was a very simple song, but it had strong lyrics which implied that weed smokers essentially run the country.

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The other musicians up on stage were absolutely phenomenal as well. The rest of the band, consisting of Brin Desai and Hameem Kader on live electronics, Jinti on lead guitars, Karan on percussion and Dipu on bass and Tanmay on Drums, played their instrumental solos as they got introduced. It was apparent during the performance that these musicians were holding back so as to not scare people away with their musical prowess. This was confirmed during their solos. The bassist started shredding on the bass with a perfect slaps and thumps and the guitarist pulled divebombs and made several car and bike noises with the whammy bar (he’s a certified automobile engineer) on a Fender Stratocaster without a Floyd Rose locking. Now, that takes courage to do on stage because the guitar risks getting detuned very easily.

The audience started chanting for encores after their set, to which they obliged, and during the encore, Papon taught the audience a bit of Assamese. Resultantly, they took their bow and exited the stage to the myriad cheers of ‘HOI’ (‘Yes’ in Assamese).

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It was then time for Nucleya to own the stage. The rather crazy electronica artist did not fail to deliver his amazing mash of tracks and even more amazing persona. The MU crowd gathered in astronomical numbers just to experience the Bass Raja kick-start the madness with his energetic and interactive set – something which his name has been synonymous with, of late.

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For the entire duration that he was on stage, the whole of KMC Greens seemed to be a more bass-heavy version of itself. With almost every track, it wasn’t tough to just effortlessly blend in with the exultant audience and simply bounce around! Laung gawacha, Akkad-Bakkad and the many other popular tracks of Nucleya had quite an impact, especially when they came blasting on those gigantic speakers.

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Thus ended the four glorious days of blissful Reveling, as the tired, yet joyous Revelers walked back to their respective hostels with the Director of MIT, Dr. G.K. Prabhu himself in their midst. The innumerable folks who worked ever so tirelessly to make Revels 2016 happen can finally enjoy their well-deserved rest from work and take solace in the fact that the fest could not have gone down any smoother.

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And so begins the countdown for Revels ’17.

Here’s to the fest that was!

Rahul Basu and Prakhar Prabhakar for MTTN

(Photos by Dikshit Sharma and Rakshith Acharya)

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