A music group when is formed by six guys who are close friends makes it special. ‘Euphoric Amateurs‘ is one such. We knew about them going for the big kill this time during Extravaganza ’11. Preliminarily it was supposed to be during the band blasts (an intra-college competition of rock bands). But the passion that the group oozes out made it to decide not to settle for less, in any mortal way. And so, there they were, up in the big stage, getting a slot of one and a half hours for themselves. And at the end of the day, they were the clear winners. Passion for music overcoming every fear, every undecisiveness, every bad patch. We enjoyed their music, their interactions on stage, and most of all, the unlimited opportunity of savouring a quality time for everyone.


From left: Sanket (rhythm guitar), Soumya (Drummer, Octopad), Subhadip (Bass guitar), Arnab (Lead guitar), Avik (Flute, Khunjari), and last but not the least Deep (Lead vocalist).

They started with some melodious Bengali numbers, and instantly the crowd started swaying their bodies with the rhythm. Initial nervousness was clear among them, but what followed was amazing. It just took the initial performance for the whole group to wind up to the unlimited energy they were saving for this very performance.

Apart from covers of few well-famous Hindi, Bengali, English numbers, this group had two of their self-composed numbers too. What was the most striking about them was their choice of songs. They made it a point that the starting number needs to be a power-packed one, which will eventually take the responsibility to set the mood with the audience, and also give a ray of hope that what was going to come must be interesting. And yeah, they were successful enough to instill that very mood among the audience.

When we got the Gig Alert from this band and got curious about their line up, their planned use of Flute, Khunjari made us look forward for them. And when they were making their statements on stage, seemed to me that there were nothing much that can force them to go wrong. The guitar licks from the lead and bass guitarists were stunning, the flute brought up uncomparable melody to the performance, the rhythm guitar true to its own talent and the vocals running through the skins of the audiences. Things were good, as they say.

Since I knew about their songs-line-up, I was expectant enough of this sort of performance from them. But that may have taken away some of the surprise elements from the night. But for common audiences, they were seemingly like the very thing they wanted to start off the first day of Extravaganza with unlimited charisma and elan. Had this band got some more time to themselves, they could have made the night a more musically memorable one, with the numbers like ‘Californication‘ by Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the likes coming on.

Personally, I liked the fact that this band (as they like to call themselves, rather than being called a music group) did not settle for cliched and overtly played numbers like the covers of Fossils, Prithibi and the likes. I feel that after an certain extent, you should look at music from a wide-angle lens – which is sure to give you much more than what you already have had in your kitty. Last year we, the cultural organizers of ‘Youthopia‘ made it a point that we will expose people to type of sporadic music that they are not accustomed to. We brought Mantra, a nationally famous Nepali band from Darjeeling, Nomads, another of the same genre but not as popular as their earlier counterpart. They covered hard rock, metal numbers. At the end of the day, they indeed gave much-enjoyed performances. This band ‘Euphoric Amateurs’ did the same for everyone. They have been successful to start up a new taste in music among these college going audiences, they gave them a new genre to listen to.

Overall, ‘Euphoric Amateurs‘ were amazing. A little more professionalism and understanding on stage could have made them better. But even without those, what they gave us was an outstanding night. And that’s what matters the most!