Amazing man. A talented flamenco guitarist, he's written compositions for orchestras, and is in the midst of doing the soundtrack to a Playstation game (?!) , I know him from the ambient cds he's released. I've also heard him play live, in Melbourne (thanks Joelsy!) and it was one of the best shows I'd ever been to.
So, reading this, I got all excited and looked to see who would be game enough to come check this out with me.
Most people came back with a "Nitin who?!!" but in the end, found 10 willing participants and on the day itself, a few of us trooped off to the Camden Kitchen, a little cafe and had huge falafel and beef burgers... we then met up with the rest inside the Jazz Cafe.
The place filled up pretty quickly. The Jazz Cafe had a huge main floor with a stage at one end where acts perform. The floor has a small bar on one side and another, larger, bar which services the floor as well as small lounge area, near the entrance to the venue.
Anyway, at 9pm, the band, Nitin included, trooped onto the stage. They had a person on the drums, a cellist, a bass guitarist, an Indian flute player (I assumed that the person playing the Indian flute was Indian, too) who sang sometimes, a tabla player, a human beatbox and Nitin played the piano and the flamenco guitar. They also had an assortment of female singers who sang in various different styles (Arabian, Indian, French, blues, rapping in Spanish... ) and it was a curious and glorious mix and match of instruments and styles.
Anyway, it all ended at 11-ish to an amazing encore. We sat around for a bit, waiting for the main press of people to head home before we went to collect our coats. It's been a month since the gig, and I still have this sense of awe, thinking back to it.
If anyone's interested in finding out more about Nitin Sawhney, you can check out the albums on Amazon here, or else visit his website here.
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