CHENNAI: It was not just a performing stage for them, it was a world of memories that they stepped on. Members of the band Second Coming, a few of them who are alumni of St George School, performed at the school’s 300th year celebration, amid cheers and hoots of around 800 fans on Saturday evening. Somewhere amid the loud cheer, they took a nostalgic trip to their school days, say the band members.
Sengen Joachim, 67, an alumnus of the school and former band leader of The Avengers says, “I grew up on the St George’s campus as my father Harold Joachim was the headmaster and principal for many years. It was an emotional homecoming for me, a sort of a Second Coming. And performing with a big band like Second Coming, the band that I founded along with Reji Varghese, is great. Many of the members are my juniors to whom I’ve taught music.”
Sengen and his band transformed the humble campus of the oldest British-founded school in India into a massive dance floor with their high voltage act, starting with an instrumental rendition of the popular Besame Mucho, and ending with the evergreen Hotel California.
What was scheduled to be a three-hour performance starting at 7 pm, went on till the early hours of the next day, with the group obliging to audience requests that ranged from Shania Twain’s Man I feel like a Woman to a more recent All that Bass.
According to another member and alumnus of the school Philip Kohlhoff, the audience included past students from all over the world — from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — who came specifically for the celebrations. “It was an honour to be back in the school where we spent our childhood. So many memories flooding in, so many familiar faces, some of them people whom I haven’t seen for 35 years!” he adds. Apart from Sengen and Philip, the band’s other two members of the band, bass guitarist Tenny Allwood and celebrity drummer Alan Dcosta, are alumni of the school.