My engineering college had a rich tradition of cultural festivals and Rock music. ‘Horizons’ was our annual fest for which the entire college longed for and started working for from the around the middle of the year. Committees were formed, leaders elected, budgets drawn and plans drawn to organize an event which was grander than the previous year. Students worked feverishly as the days got closer, classes were bunked royally and studying became optional.
The event ran for 3 days. The first day’s main event was the fashion show which was like in no other college. Of course we were just interested in gawking at the girls on the stage and hooting at their every pose and pout. The second day’s attraction was ‘Pro-Nite’, my favorite event. This was a concert by a leading singer or famous musician. This was the big draw which was used in posters and promotional material to draw sponsors.
But the third day was what a big section of the college waited for, ‘The Rock Show’. This involved one of the indie rock bands or a bunch of local rock bands performing a few originals and mostly classic rock. People stayed in college all 3 days and final night was the culmination of months of hard work. The music provided a sense of exhilaration. Booze flowed like water, the air thick with smoke and people were just starting to scale the heights. I missed the Rock night all 3 years.
I love my music; be it film, pop or classical, but I wasn’t exposed to Rock while growing up. And by the time I came to college, there were others who were already in masters in Rock Fandom. I had to start at kindergarten and everyone knows older boys don’t like to play with kids. So I pretended to dislike Rock to get through. When my friends fawned over Pink Floyd and Metallica, I claimed they gave me headaches. Over years, whenever people talk about rock bands like Nirvana, Aerosmith, Queens or Dire Straits, I could only imagine that I was missing an entire universe of music. Somehow I’ve never been able to just get started. I randomly started listening to some of all time hits, but wasn’t able to appreciate it completely. Maybe the history was lost on me or maybe I needed to start with something else.
So this is my attempt to start a journey, to learn about rock music, understand its history and experience the greatest creations from the Masters of Rock. In the course of this journey, I hope to create a collection of articles, links, videos and songs to which I can go back and keep revisiting. And hopefully this might help someone else who starts blank like me.