For some people it was a lonely Valentine’s Day. And this goes out especially to them.

When we played in Pune last year we decided we weren’t going back without cake and cookies from the famous German Bakery. Enjoying them in Bangalore the next day, we didn’t foresee having to reflect on that simple pleasure like this.

Terror could have struck then as it did on the night of February 13, 2010. But we lived to write this. And we shall make the most of the life and joy granted to us.

It is somewhat edifying that we were able to reach out to Pune on February 14. Opus Pune webcast the One Small Love concert live to its patrons.

Thank you for turning up (and turning down your other Valentine’s Day engagements) and for your support and encouragement right through this initiative.

Foremost, our thanks go to the fabulous folks at Trumpit and Opus – Carlton, Shonali, Priyanka, Venkat, Adrian and all the staff whose names fail us but whose smiling faces fill our minds when we recollect that lovely evening. Thank you for event support, your gracious hospitality and for making our artists and guests feel at home at Opus in the Creek, such a tranquil setting with its giant Buddha and tippling fish.

Thank you Konarak Reddy, Gerard Machado, Ravichandra Kulur, Alwyn Fernandes, Gaurav Vaz and Karan Joseph for your soul-stirring performances. A special thanks to Vasu, Varun, Jishnu, Montry, Pavan and Sanjeev, the awesome musicians of Swarathma, for playing a pulse-quickening show. In a market where live performances can hardly pay the bills, these wonderful people unquestioningly played for love.

For making the One Small Love concert a resounding success we thank Niranjan, the man at the soundboard whose admirable patience with the tantrums of rock stars is legend.

Thanks to Saswati Chakravarty, C K Meena, Prakash Belawadi and Harish Bijoor for articulating their special messages to our audience because rock stars (with the notable exception of Gaurav Vaz) are so pathetic at making speeches.

For his time-saving and completely impromptu comic interlude, a whopper of a thank-you goes out to our friendly neighbourhood Bollywood star-in-the-making Rajeev Ravindranathan.

Thanks to Merwyn Rodrigues of JumpMedia, Dubai, who accepted a brief that few designers would, and delivered a poster and profile image for our Facebook page in just a few hours.

We thank Smita and the very talented and even-tempered folks at Kieon for online support and web design.

Thanks to Kartik Iyer, Praveen Das and the beautiful minds at Happy Creative Services for dreaming up the original One Small Love music video. Special thanks also to Ashvin Naidu of Avakkai Films.

Thank you, PG Santhosh and his colleagues at MIPL-GraphicsAllAround, for the One Small Love giveaway stickers and for the big yellow smiley that graced the stage throughout the show.

Thank you, Gaurav Manchanda, for being Ayrton Senna to our guests when the cab guys ditched us at the eleventh hour.

We thank Dean Umesh PN, professors Srijayanth and Ananth and research fellow Bindu of the TAAQ Roadie Institute of Technology (RIT) for running the show like a smoothie, and especially for committing themselves to the odious task of filming people drawing smileys under hot lights.

We are immensely grateful to Facebook and WordPress for their fabulous (and free) online products, which make social messaging and online publishing look ridiculously easy. Ten years ago, we would have struggled to drum up opt-in support for an event like this. This year, we didn’t phone a single journalist.

In the same breath, we thank Facebook evangelists such as Martin D’Souza for spreading the message of One Small Love to their networks. Thanks also to the 1,300+ fans of the One Small Love page for your endorsement of this movement. You have a lot to look forward to.

We have had many managers and we love and respect all of them. But no one merits a bigger ovation than Divya Joseph, who deserves a lifetime royalty from Adidas for living the slogan ‘Impossible is Nothing’. The list of things she deserves to be thanked for cannot be accommodated here, so let just it be said that she was the smile on the face of One Small Love.

Thanks to Velu Shankar, a long-time friend, philosopher and guide of Thermal And A Quarter, for his advice and encouragement.

One Small Love begins at home. Our families deserve our utmost love and gratitude for their support and suffering in the face of our absences, late nights and many missed dinners. Since this suffering, and our solicitations for support, are not about to stop in the near future, we thank you in advance.

The show must go on, no matter what threats loom up to stop us. And we will do everything in our power as musicians and artists to fight violence and hate with messages of love, tolerance and freedom. To paraphrase Harry Belafonte: “You can cage the singer but not the song.”

The concert is only the beginning. In the future that is about to unfold, One Small Love will reach out to the world in many ways and touch many lives.

Let’s draw the line each day.

The post One Big Thankyou appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

“I’m not a Mangalorean but I love their food, and I’m not a Bangalorean but I live here,” he says. What is this about cities, anyway? Whose fault was it that India was organized into states on the basis of language? And why do we get so parochial over who is allowed to inhabit and work in our cities?

Questions that point to one simple answer: One Small Line. That’s all you need to draw to live in harmony in a tired world.

Join Rajeev and others like him at ‘One Small Love – Bangalore for Mangalore‘, a concert that stresses the notion of one love, one world.

Draw the line. Spread the love.

The post One Small Love – Rajeev Ravindranathan draws the line appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

Landed in Jakarta 3rd afternoon. Heard it was rainy in these parts, but perhaps they were taking it a bit too far – it was actually raining inside our Air Asia Boeing from KL to Jakarta (last leg). Greeted at airport by the very friendly Mike from Java Jazz, holding a big ‘TAAQ’ sign. Helped through paperwork; all the baggage shows up – it’s a great day already!

taaq with prasanna @ java jazz 09

The Sultan Hotel used to be the Hilton (that rhymes – if you’re Mark Knopfler) and it’s swankus maximus, so all’s well again! The JJF folks are amazing, really friendly, really efficient, and really hard working. Have lunch at the Peacock Café here, and we are immediately hit with the realization that we’re not getting back without carrying a few extra pounds. If there was ever a buffet to die for, This Is It.

Spend the rest of the day bumping into (name dropping coming up!) Dave Weckl, Mike Stern etc, while 40,000 odd folks queue up to get tickets for the festival. Yes, 40,000.

TAAQ jams with Prasanna

4th morn, meet Prasanna on his way in – we’re supposed to jam tonight at our first pre-festival warm-up gig here, at the Airman Planet Lounge. Do a small ‘Glaswegian’ practice (if you followed our UK tour, you know what that means) in Prasanna’s room – fix up to play new track Grab Me and the staple Brigade St. Nice vibe! Nice PRS axe too.

Brigade Street goes to Indonesia

Gig starts 10:30 pm, no soundcheck; launch into Sunset Man, Look at Me, etc. Good vibes from the crowd so far… Prasanna comes in on the last two tracks and puts his distinctive stamp on them, all right. Finish up with a fully jammed out Brigade St and our first gig at Java Jazz is done… two more to go, sowatchthisspaceetc!

The post Rites from the Road – TAAQ @ Java Jazz 09 appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).