A fun acoustic evening at The Courtyard

Falah Faisal

As Shantanu’s tour bus pulled into The Courtyard, you could see how tired he was having been on the road for weeks and having just played a show in Goa. A surprise addition to the gig was the opening act Karshini Nair, who had hopped on the bus in Mumbai but decided to stick with the tour till Hyderabad. “It is a very surreal experience,” says a very excited Karshini, who is performing in Bengaluru for the first time.

She takes the stage singing songs about anxiety and selfrealizations, one of them is even a eulogy that she wrote as a prompt from National Poetry writing month. The song that catches everyone’s attention because how relatable it is, is about falling in love with someone from her Google Classroom just based on the thumbnail.

Shantanu then comes on stage and begins with the song Halley’s Comet which is based on a lie his grandfather told him. “When I was a kid we were at my grandparents’ house and went up on the terrace to see a comet which was very beautiful and my grandfather said it was the Halley’s comet. When I looked it up later I realized that the Halley’s Comet last appeared in 1986 and I’m definitely not that old,” he jokes between songs, adding that he will be 68 when the comet makes its next appearance.

His set is a mix of old songs from his Run It’s the Kid Days and new songs from his most recent album Milk Teeth which he is touring to promote. “I wrote 2-3 songs right before the tour started because I wasn’t looking forward to playing just old songs, some of which I’ve been working on since 2017. This is the first time anyone will be getting to hear them,” he said.

Karshini joins him on stage to play Aliza Don’t Count On Me. As the two of them harmonize on stage the audience joins in to sing along and you almost feel the Hard Seltzer that was distributed earlier finally hitting you.

 Speaking after the gig, Shantanu does note that the fatigue caused by the travel was finally hitting him during the performance today, but he just powered through hoping he’d get some rest once he’s on the bus. The bus pulls out early in the morning to beat traffic as they set off to play Chennai next.