Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival is tumbling out for its 22nd year this June long weekend, and bringing with it a huge selection of local and international talent that spans much more than its name suggests. From jazz and blues to funk and avant-garde; from reggae-roots to acid, soul, and yes, even Bollywood... The free festival is centred at Tumbalong Park, and features three days of shows, big-band workshops, an open-air jazz bar
Welcome To Bollywood By Thomas Bailey nakes! Bullets! Super secret agents! Bandits! Monkeys and tigers! Espionage and romance! These are recurring themes in some of classic Bollywood’s greatest cinematic extravaganzas, where acting and plot take a backseat to some of the craziest, overthe-top song and dance scenes ever committed to celluloid. Enter The Bombay Royale, a Melbourne-based eleven-piece musical powerhouse who have taken the themes and soundtracks from these films and infused them with all the colour, production and energy one would expect from a four-hour-plus Bollywood movie. The band had first set out to strictly do covers from the gilded ‘60s era of Bollywood, but soon evolved into writing their own material – and their debut album, You Me Bullets Love, was released just last month. “People say, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to do the Bollywood dance’, but it’s very easy!’” assures Parvyn Singh, one of the two singers in this bombastic Bollywood/surf/psychedelic band. “You put your hands in the air and pretend you’re screwing in a light bulb! That’s what it’s about!” Bombay Royale was founded by Andy Williamson, a saxophonist and Bollywood aficionado who was driven by the fact that no one in Melbourne seemed to be performing that type of music live. “[Williamson]’s always had a great interest in that style of music,” Singh tells me. “He sat down and scored some great cover tunes from the ‘60s era, and got some great people together. It started as an instrumental thing, but when it was coming together they put the feelers out for a singer, and then my name came up, ‘cause I’ve been performing with my dad since I was really young.
“I went down and saw these guys, they were in a tiny studio in the Hope Street Warehouse in Brunswick where we did our initial rehearsals. So there I was in this tiny room with all these white guys, and they were doing all these songs from my childhood – like, I grew up with all this stuff!” she laughs. “I started singing, and we found Shourov [Bhattacharya, the male singer] later, and it all came together. And voila! Here we are!” An aspect of The Bombay Royale’s live show that you’ll notice right off the bat – besides the fact that there are eleven of them onstage – is that they don’t just play music: these guys put on a full-blown stage production, complete with intensely intricate orchestrations, secret agents, plot twists and bandit masks. How the hell, I ask, do they keep things so organised? “We’ve got all the characters, which really helps us maintain that personae as a full group,” Singh says. “So with the band, you have The Skipper – who’s Andy – the leader of ‘the bad guys’. He’s the leader of this big gang of thugs, which is all the musicians: The Jewel Thief [Josh Bennett, guitar and sitar] and The Railway Mogul [Tom Martin, guitar] and The Kung-Fu Dentist [Ros Jones, trombone] – and so he’s in charge of them!” she explains. “Shourov and I are the secret agents – we’ve got this whole back-story that we present onstage. So throughout our performance and throughout our songs there’s always those characters in the back of our minds. It really helps create tension and the right vibe, and the orchestration is really rehearsed; we make sure we know who’s meant to be doing what when!” But what’s most important to Singh and the band is showcasing brilliant music from incredible musicians. “[The musicians] feel it really well. At the moment with what we’re doing, we’re able to see the individual talent of all the musicians who are in the band; it’s slowly coming out,
and, for the first time, Moonlight Jazz in the Chinese Garden. There’s over forty acts, including Dr Lonnie Smith (USA), local legend James Morrison and indie bands like Kira Puru and Sister Jane – plus a smorgasbord of sideshows and jazz nights to keep you going after dark. We caught up with a few of our favourites who’ll be showcasing their sounds. For more, make your way online: www.darlingharbour.com
and every once in a while you will get a great keyboard solo or guitar solo or horn solo. As we go along, I think the story’s developing, and the characters will have leading roles to play. So it’s really like this never-ending movie that we’re creating within the band!” This prompts my next question – are Bombay Royale planning on creating their very own Bollywood movie? “That’s definitely something we would love to do!” she exclaims. “Obviously we need the budget and the right people who would get behind it. There’s some talk about a film director in the UK who would love to work with us, and a couple members of the band are really into scriptwriting, so there’s so much possibility with the band, which is exciting! But slow and steady, I think.” Now that You Me Bullets Love has been released to glowing reviews, it’s high time for The Bombay Royale to celebrate with an album launch tour. And Singh promises that it’s going to be huge. “It’s a cinematic experience, so we’ve got two big screens on the side of the stage, and we’ve got a film guy who’s going to do some video footage of Bollywood movie scenes, superimposing Bombay Royale footage into it and doing all this really cool video art as well – it’s going to be an overload in every sense possible!” Just listening to the singer describe it makes me excited, and I’m not alone. “I’m getting more and more excited the more I think about it, too!” she laughs. What: You Me Bullets Love is out now on HopeStreet Records, through Mistletone Where: The Basement When: Sunday June 10 More: Monday June 11, 5.45pm-7pm @ Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour
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