Sanchal Malhar and Nikhil Rufus of Indigo Children.

Menwhopause played a gig at Tihar Jail a couple of weeks ago.

I was very skeptical about  if their music will work inside Asia’s largest jail, but they proved me wrong. Menwhopause, instead of just going in there and playing their all-english music ended up working with ‘The Flying Souls’- a band made up of inmates from Jail No. 3 and did a fantastic job of encouraging them to play and write. It wasn’t like a regular gig. Menwhopause is the first band I ever photographed. These are songs i’ve been listening to for years and they took on a whole new meaning inside the Jail. Especially when the inmates were singing them. These 3 weeks with Menwhopause and the music they were making seemed like the only sense of normalcy for people inside the jail. I came out feeling a whole range of emotions starting from empathy when I was inside and umm, all sorts of doubt when I was back outside. Its a whole ‘nother world, surprisingly not that far removed from what you read about or see in movies.

Menwhopause at Tihar Jail – Images by Shiv Ahuja

Shiv

Hello all,

Hope you had a blast this past weekend.

We’ve been out of action for over 6 months now, for some strange reason. I just checked our email address(info@liveshots.in) and saw that there are TONS of guest post emails. I’m going to schedule those in for this month. Meanwhile, keep those photographs coming. We’d love to see your pictures!

Live Shots was a lot of fun and we hope to take it further this year with more pictures and hopefully some new collaborations!

Here’s a picture from me to start the year with.

This one was shot while on tour with The Raghu Dixit Project. TRDP is the only band i’ve seen play to hoity-toity club crowds in the metros with steep entry charges and expensive drinks and at the same time  also rock out full ‘Janta’ shows with over a Lakh people. Its amazing to see how the same band can adapt to such varied crowds/situations. This show at Bijapura was a politicians birthday and saw over 1.5 lakh attendees. The sheer scale of this event was unprecedented, really. They’ve shown me a whole new side to live music in the country. And I cannot wait to see what they have in store for 2012!

Shiv

Pain of Salvation frontman, Daniel Gildenlöw, offstage before the band’s concert at IIT-Madras’ Saarang festival. January 29, 2011. IIT-Madras. Chennai.

Blues singer Shemekia Copeland during her set at Mahindra Blues. February 5, 2011. Mehboob Studios. Mumbai.

Blues musician, Jonny Lang, at the Mahindra Blues festival. February 5, 2011. Mehboob Studios. Mumbai.

Tipriti Kharbangar, of Shillong blues band, Soulmate, at the Mahindra Blues festival. February 6, 2011. Mehboob Studios. Mumbai.

Another one of Matt Schofield, during Mahindra Blues. February 6, 2011. Mehboob Studios. Mumbai.

British blues musician, Matt Schofield during his smouldering set at the Mahindra Blues festival. February 6, 2011. Mehboob Studios. Mumbai.