Truth be told, I hadn’t heard much about the band. But my homework revealed that they were household names back home in Mumbai & in Pune. With an open mind, I headed to Hard Rock Café. 

I scoured in the darkness for dudes with guitars near the stage and before I knew it, a friendly Steven Tyler-esque man was asking me to join his pre gig snack – yes, that was him:

  
Zeddester TuBlue: Lead Singer O’ Zedde!

What followed was the Ten Minute Quest For Brightness, a challenging game to play at HRC, which we WON!

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Zedde filling us in on them, their music & what was in store for the night: 

ZEDDE ONSTAGE:

Zedde opened riffing Led. No more being dazed and confused! With a shawl-draped mic stand, an insane bout of energy & a winning set-list, the audience was jolted into a 2 hour Zedde-a-thon! 

The four-piece act is primarily a cover band and boy, do they do sweet justice to GnR! See this is the kind of backlash needed every once in a while. A lot of people may think that the 80s were the joke in classic rock but I for one have always been a BIG fan of the song structures, guitar gimmickry, the ‘dirty amp’ sound, the flanging, trippy hooks & the flamboyance! I’m not going to say much about the hair. 

Think AC/DC, Queen, Guns n Roses and all 80s anthems like ‘We Don’t Need No Education’, ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane’. (I will confess though that I was a tad bit disappointed Motley Crue covers were absent!) The covers were mostly spot-on. Lead Singer, 2Blue, is a livewire simply put. Yes, he would disappear from onstage focus every now & then (on water breaks or to interact with the audience).

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And on these occasions, our faces were melted by uber cool fretwork.

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There aren’t too many 80s rock tribute bands (a few months ago Mumbai based Overhung covered Nirvana), Zedde stands out for their impeccable sound & another edge, the very convincing falsettos by the frontman. And they are VERY ably supported by Akashdeep Gogoi on bass & Trevor Berchman on the drums! GnR tributes have in fact been their forte and I’m not surprised why. I must also mention here, as far as X factors go, Claver Menezes. He drilled the guitar. Quite literally. 

More closeups couldn’t be gotten due to major levels of jawdrop & stunning. 

That said, at times the vocals could have definitely been louder. Back up took a back seat during some crucial mellow-er moments. We Didn’t Start The Fire was a little too fast, Smooth Criminal had more potential.

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There were moments though – like in the drum pattern for Queen’s We Will Rock You & even the beginning to Smooth Criminal.  As far as own compositions go, they’ve still got a longer road ahead. I would identify them more as an 80s cover band. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because I can’t think of any others right now who pull it off so well!

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Mirror was alright – starting alternative/acoustic and moving on to doomer, the anthem Mumbai was well received (had a hardcore Mumbaikar clutching his heart and belting along) & the theatrical Mr. Horny where our man donned a mask & grabbed onto a loudspeaker for the muted phone effect, was surely a win.

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The audience was very actively engaged. It was not just the onstage histrionics but also the song selection for the evening – EVERYONE would have related to at least one song. Mash ups like Highway To Hell to Smoke On The Water were the kind of thrills that had people screaming along in recognition & zeal.

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That will be all. I’m not going to romanticize further about how mind blowing this roller coaster trip to the 80s was. I’ve let the iPhone do the talking. 

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In Conclusion:

Waiting for bikes, big hair & metal chains to come back in vogue?

Have a soft spot for male falsettos?

Miss the times when rock was neither as extreme as death nor as inconsequential as punk?

Do you basically have an undying love for 80s rock?

Zedde will be your Zen. Catch them when you can and relive the era.

CAMERA CREDITS: SWATHI CHATRAPATHY

More of her awesome stuff here!