Last night, I attended what was my first music “concert†of my life. Except that the concert was held in a small room size of oversized bedroom, and the audience consisted of 15 people, including 4 of my friends. We were at Six Points Music Festival, now in its second year, a initiative aimed at showcasing some of the best smaller bands, also called independent bands, or indie bands, around the D.C area. The husband of a colleague of a friend of mine featured in a band that was going to play there, and that is how we came to know about the festival.
Strathmore Hall was the place where the concert was held – a huge place for arts and music. It helped that this center was just right across the street from where I lived, and made it a much easier commute for me – why we could have just walked and it wouldn’t take ten minutes to get there. When I and my friend got there, we were quite surprised to see large number of senior citizens (65+) in the concert hall area – they all seemed appropriately dressed for an opera rather than a rock concert, and we began to have our doubts if we had come to the right festival indeed. Turned out, it was a veteran’s music festival on the same day that six points was held – six points was being held in the “Mansion Hall†of Strathmore, which was another 5 minute walk away in the campus. Mansion it definitely was, what struck us there, was an utter lack of any public around.
Once inside the mansion, much to our surprise, we were probably the first, and for a long time looked like the only audience to this festival. The band we were about to listen to was The Seldon Plan, a local indie band around for sometime. At around 7.30 they started their half hour show, and I must say I was in for a complete surprise – they turned out to be a real good band, with some real good music.
They came out with an album last year, and played mostly songs from the album, particularly “Top Left Cornerâ€, “Westchester†and “Holding Patterns are slow†(I really bizarre name for a song I would say). They played a few more, but I didn’t get the names. I must say, for a good 35 minutes, I enjoyed the music. Theirs is a 4 band army, with 3 guitarists doubling as vocals and bass, and another with drums and percussions. The names of members can be found here (I wish their website had more info on the members).
Their style was very much in the independent music band, and perhaps carried a little inspiration from Death Cab for Cutie, a band which made it huge recently. Their music stayed simple, guitars, bass and drums being mostly their background; what I liked very much about them was they didn’t try too hard, but just played good music. Period.
One thing which I really appreciated about them was the way they entertained a crowd, of all but 15 people in the room. They cracked jokes, smiled and got the 15 people involved in their music. Its was great to see them enjoying their own music, which is what music is all about.
Later, we came to know a bit about the group from the colleague – one of the band members is doctor in neuroscience, other a robotic engineer working for government, yet another a computer engineer. They all pursue music as a hobby seriously and play at local venues. We were quite stunned to hear that – and here were we, claiming to lead “busy†lives with “no time†to do anything, when in front of us stood a band, probably much busier than we were, but finding time to do what they love. It was refreshing indeed.
After their performance, the next band which came in didn’t match up, and felt like overdose of radiohead hangover lingering around. We promptly exited the mansion in the middle of next performance.
All in all, it was a great event – I hope their album “Making Circles†makes it big; and I am already to buy some of their songs from iTunes.
Do give them a listen. A couple of their tracks are on their website and also on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/theseldonplan.