BANGALORE: CounterCulture will present Grasshopper Green on January 28, 8.30pm onwards. Grasshopper Green is a jam band whose music straddles rock, funk, and folk, with a mix of English and Tamil lyrics. Constant emphasis on high-energy groove-based improvisation (jamming) keeps their music edgy and unpredictable.
The band rarely plays songs the same way twice, and audiences say that its willingness to take risks on stage makes its performances engaging and thrilling. The band’s mix of English and Tamil laid over hard-driving funk-rock and folk grooves has given it a fan base that is spread across the globe.
Band history:
With members Shudeep Chandrasekar (Vocals, Flute), Antony Hariharan (Guitar, Keyboards) and Sunil Philip (Bass), Sandeep Sridharan (Drums), Grasshopper Green started in 1990’s was the only band in Chennai (and one of the very few in India) to play only original compositions. Most of the compositions grew out of spontaneous improvisation, and the band was known for weaving songs into long sets (typically an hour and a half each) of impromptu grooves.
Sunil left the band in 1996 to build his architecture firm, and Rzhude David took on bass playing responsibilities. The next few years of incessant practice and performance were a period of intense creativity for the band. In the early 2000s, soon after the band had begun to create Tamil versions of its songs, its members took a break and went their separate ways: Antony Hariharan, the guitarist, finished his specialization and began to practice as a cardio-thoracic surgeon; Rzhude David moved to Bangalore for personal reasons and joined Thermal and a Quarter, which became one of India’s most successful rock bands; and Shudeep and Sandeep moved out of Chennai to pursue their careers in the BPO industry.
The band regrouped in the last quarter of 2011 with Sunil on bass once again, and has since been working on refining its compositions, playing concerts, and composing new material. Recent concerts in South Chennai and Mamallapuram received an overwhelming response from city-based music lovers as well as travelers from the US, UK, Europe and Australia.