PULSE
Friday, November 30, 2012 - North Shore News - A13
YOUR NORTH SHORE GUIDE to ARTS & CULTURE
Cirque du Soleil settles in for an extended run under the Grand Chapiteau: Page 18 Bruce Springsteen was in fine form at Rogers Arena: Page 20 Magical McCartney tour finally hits Vancouver: Page 21
photo supplied
DELHI 2 Dublin’s mixture of Irish fiddle, electric sitar, dhol, tabla and Punjabi lyrics have proved irresistible to many electronica fans. They perform tracks from their new album, Turn Up the Stereo, tonight at the Commodore Ballroom.
DELHI 2 DUBLIN ROCK THE COMMODORE
Turn it up
Harpist Heidi Krutzen performing Britten gem with Cap U choir: Page 47 Brad Pitt brilliant as hitman with heart in Killing Me Softly: Page 55 More online at www.nsnews.com/ entertainment twitter.com/ NSNPulse
■ Delhi 2 Dublin at the Commodore Ballroom tonight at 8 p.m.
Jeremy Shepherd jshepherd@nsnews.com
THE five-piece band takes the stage in the midst of the Midwest, and the nightmare begins. The group’s brand of international electronica has been loved and lavished with praise by thousands of fans, but on that night in Iowa City, Iowa, they’re facing an audience of one. For Tarun Nayar, who provides the beat and bass line for many of Delhi 2 Dublin’s songs, the disappointment runs deeper: it’s his birthday. “We still played,” Nayar reports. The group’s mixture of Irish fiddle, electric sitar, dhol, tabla, and Punjabi lyrics have proved irresistible to many electronica fans, perhaps even including Iowa City’s lone Delhi 2 Dublin supporter. “He seemed like he had a good time,” Nayar says. The group is scheduled to play the Commodore Ballroom tonight. The band’s newest album, Turn Up the Stereo, will be sold for $5 at the show with $2 of each sale going to support UBC Farm. Growing up straddling the leather line between punk and metal in Montreal mosh pits, Nayar has always been comfortable in two worlds. As a founding member of Delhi 2 Dublin, Nayar alternates between accentuating the band’s Bhangra beats with the tabla, an Indian percussion instrument that may date back more than 2,000 years, and programming the
group’s electronica sound with his Apple laptop. That tendency to mix seemingly disparate sounds is likely rooted in Nayar’s upbringing, where ghazal singer Mehdi Hassan competed for time on the turntable with light folk groups like Peter, Paul and Mary. “I started learning tabla when I was really young, when I was about seven, and I didn’t know how to speak Hindi or Urdu at that point of time but my sisters and I would sing phonetically,” Nayar recalls. Those gentle sounds slid away when Nayar hit his teen years, slipping into Montreal’s multi-level music spot and putting his neck through the requisite trials of the headbanger. “Probably because I was growing up in the suburbs, I got really into thrash metal and hardcore, and heavy metal, and punk. Bands like the Sex Pistols, the old, old version of Metallica, and S.N.F.U. . . . all these crazy punk bands,” Nayar says. “I would sneak into Les Foufounes Electriques which was like the happening punk bar at the time, and just go out and go crazy until I was about 15 or 16.” A change in geography upended Nayar’s musical tastes. “I remember it was our first family trip anywhere hot, and we did a house trade with some distant relatives in the Cayman Islands,” Nayar says. “Going to a tropical place and listening to Bob Marley for two weeks non-stop, that just totally shifted my life.” Nayar hung up his devil horns and made an abrupt switch to reggae and African music. “It was like I got all my anger out,” he says. See Delhi page 48