During soundcheck we didn’t quite bargain for the interference from a few thousand mouths equitably chewing cud and yakking over gargles of beer, or the gurgle of their innards haplessly digesting it, or the sloshing of their bladders as they rushed off to empty them, or the annoying honk of several hundred plastic party horns that someone had carelessly distributed, or the gnashing echoes of heavier-than-thou Malayalica that had been performed before us, or the competing discord reflected from the PA of a neighbouring festival.

Ergo, our sound onstage was so murky that we could hardly hear ourselves think. But how many inebriated men and women (and children — we hope they were the ones driving their parents home) in the audience cared?

It was, in the final analysis, not a bad show after all. We had a lot of fun on stage playing just before Indian Ocean who put together a nice act despite the shock absence of their singer and tabla player Asheem Chakravarty (who is in a coma at a Qatar hospital following a massive heart attack). That did muddy the evening’s mood. Our thoughts are with Indian Ocean and with Asheem’s family, and we hope he recovers quickly and gets back on his feet.

We, too, had our own absence to complain about. We were without Rzhude, who is convalescing after a viral fever. Prakash (Cryptic, Antaragni, Karma 6) filled in quite solidly for him despite the short practice time he had on hand. We also had Jason Zachariah guesting on keyboards.

Enough words. Here are the pictures:

And finally, one of the crowd. It’s always quite characteristic of TAAQ audiences that the people who appear to be enjoying themselves the most aren’t waving or jumping up in the air but watching calmly with a wry smile.

Person in picture (with Hard Rock tee and looking stagewards with hands clasped) may please claim one numbers free autographed CD upon producing ID proof. Please send us your name and address via email along with your Orkut/Facebook/Twitter account profile as photo ID.

More in our Octoberfest Flickr photoset