A host of shows came and went. So many to remember, very few to forget. I can probably name them all with a little difficulty, but that was never the point of this article. You see, eXiled grew to become quite popular in Manipal and rightfully so. Metal was the genre and people began lapping up every heavy riff or blatantly simple in-your-face 16th note patterns on the bass drum. So we grew tired of ‘standard’ somewhere down the line. We still love playing the old songs as they represent and mark our progress as musicians. With each show we did become better, tighter in a way and unfailingly more popular. With every slot that we got on stage, the very essence of what drove the band initially, wore off and what replaced it was something unbelievably rare. With each new original, be it ‘My perpetual pain’ and its debut at the Big Gig in Chaitya Hall or ‘Through the Icy Catacombs’ and its inception in Pub Rock Fest or more recently ‘The Thousand Yard Stare’ and when it was first played in the gig at Edge, we were brought closer together by something many of us musicians choose to forget. Success and everything with it seemed to fade off into oblivion and what replaced it was this undying energy to let go and be one with the audience at stage shows. The adrenaline is intoxicating and alarmingly addictive. Soon, it was no longer about, “Hey, do you think they would like to listen to this” or “Should we play it in this order so that the judges think in our favour”. No. It was just, very simply, about having fun on stage and boy, did we live up to that ambition.
All I am saying, is that, finally after 4 long years of mindless engineering and what went along with it, the thing I will remember most about my college life is going to be those insanely long practice sessions in the horticulture room, the random long walk across Manipal in search of some nicotine, the hundreds of cellphones being waved in the air during the middle of Icy at IIM Ahmedabad, The million little Zabriskie Points, Vellore, Surathkal, FMMC, 13th Block, MIC, the painfully long journey without tickets from Bombay to Chennai on the ticket checkers seat, the crowd pulling down half the P.A. in an effort to mosh in the Big Gig or even walking back from watching Sandmonkeys live. In a way we all started out hoping we reach that level of fame which we had initially projected in our mind. Face it and be a little original and a fair deal more truthful. The whole ‘its all about the music’ is getting old now and everyone wants to be heard and appreciated. To be honest, we surpassed all those expectation we had in our heads by a long shot and towards the end, all we wanted was to get on stage and play our music the way we wanted to without paying heed to anyone or anything. It was always a special feeling when the crowd echoed these very sentiments and in those adrenaline filled moments on stage, that bond between the crowd and us was very evident.
This is not a testimonial in any way to the band. Our journey has probably come to an end. This article is about something much more important. This is a giant red lettered bold ‘Thank You’ to Manipal. To the friends we made and the parties we shared. None of you will be forgotten. We know that we have had the best crowds we could have ever wanted and our support here is endless. To Bhatia, Ranipeta and co. Thank you for the motivation and everything else. This is a tribute to all the bands we shared a stage with. This is respect to all the bands who will pass out from this institution, united under the common black banner that encompasses the Manipal Music Movement. Animus, Drop3, Apocrypha, we salute you for your work and being part of this crazy journey. Aditi Surendra and MJT. Manipal can never thank you enough. Sandmonkey. Need we say more. This was an absolutely mad ride and we achieved more than we ever set out to do. We are molded human beings after this insane trip and like most good things it has to come to an end. I sincerely hope that another group of individuals are as lucky as us one day and find what we have found in this esteemed sense of brotherhood intermingled with a deep passion for music. I honestly hope that this is not the end and that we still have that ‘last show’ under our belts. Till then, we bow down and salute you Manipal for giving us something we shall remember for the rest of our existence. It will never look any better from behind the kit.
