Country hopping guitarist to rock city today

Falah Faisal | NT

Bengaluru: The distance between a performer and an audience can be measured in vulnerability. For Shantanu Pandit, those metrics both serve to repel and compel, sometimes against his own instinctive self-preservation.

To date, his rare live performances have served as sometimes uncomfortable insights into the mundane, the momentous, and the morose. These vignettes of memories that he both cherishes and exercises allow his audience to relate to him, though perhaps unwillingly. And yet, rapt, they do.

Since 2011 he has spent ten years honing his craft, either as a solo musician, as a founding member of the seminal Delhi four-piece 'Run It's the Kid', or in the spaces in between. On his debut tour, Shantanu and his guitar will embark on an epic 4000+km road journey, panning nine concerts, eight cities and all that falls in between in a bespoke caravan courtesy of Ahmedabad[1]based RV rental and conversion company, Vahn.

 "I've been doing this music thing for 10 years now, and I'm finally getting to embark on my first real tour. "It's not just any ordinary tour, it's a road tour through the length of the country in a van,” says an excited Shantanu, over the phone, as he has made a stopover in Goa to play a gig en route to Bengaluru.

 All the shows will be stripped down, solo, intimate performances. On what he thinks is the main difference between playing solo and playing in a band, he says, “The stakes are a lot higher when you are solo. In a band, if the show goes badly, you have people to share the burden with and if it goes well, you share the joy. But when you're solo, it's all on your shoulders. When I am in a band I barely talk, but when I’m solo I have to be a human being on stage.”

Milk Teeth is the cumulation of these iterative engagements and observations, a fabric woven from periods of pre-pubescent recollection and the sometimes unwelcome interface of adult assessment, hung on a body of lyrical transparency, lilting momentum, and lethargic arrangement.

On how the decision to tour the country in a van came about, he says, “For me, it's sort of like a life[1]style. I spend a lot of time on the road. I traveled almost 10,000 kms in 6 months on my motorcycle last year alone. This is something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Shantanu spoke about traveling in a van, which has given him a lot more freedom and flexibility during the tour. He said, “In Baroda, after the show, we went kayaking, we went to a skatepark in Pune; we had the opportunity to stop over and stay at many farms along the way. Pune wasn’t even part of the tour but we could add it to cause why not play another gig.”

 He is performing at The Courtyard on August 17 before heading off to Chennai and Hyderabad and will finally conclude the tour in Delhi