Decibel: A History Part 1

Scene 1:

Sri Aurobindo College, Summer of 2001: Krishnan & Karthik meet for the first time @ a Freshers meet, where they get to know about each others love of Rock. Krishnan is into G 'N' R and Karthik is into Metallica. Both start their convo by boasting about their personal tastes, like Metallica makes better music than GnR and vice versa.sadly the convo ends in mutual abuse.

Scene 2:
Sri Aurobindo College, Autumn of 2001: Karthik enters the college and follows the sound of drums which leads him to a room and lo and behold what does he see??

Krishnan on Drums ( 5 months self taught,then), Abhishek on Fake JEM Ibanez Guitar jamming on some random crap...
Supported by Eshwar (Krishnan's Elder bro) as the only audience.
Karthik gets introduced to Abhishek & Eshwar and for the first time gets to play an Electric Guitar.

Krishnan starts playing the intro of Enter Sandman to show off his skills, Karthik goes berserk... (as that was the first time he saw somebody play the Drums)... that too.. Metallica.
To Krishnan's surprise, Karthik knows how to play the rythm of the song. They jam on it for a good 30 minutes (within a week both of them performed on stage together for the first time, They played 2 Verses of Enter Sandman and ended their set)

This was actually the beginning of a college band called "Numbskulls" which had Abhishek on Guitars, George (Joe) on Lead Guitars, since Karthik was a beginner & Numbskull lacked a Bass player, Karthik was told to shift to Bass.

Scene 3:
Sri Aurobindo College, Winters of 2003 (February): Numbskulls performed their first ever gig in Aurobindo College in front of Random Haryanvi and Gujjar Crowd. Numbskull had a guest performer 'kanishk pawar' a Guitarist friend and neighbor of Krishnan. Numbskulls played Deep Purple, Bon Jovi & Metallica songs. The gig was fun but Numbskulls was didn last long..

Scene 4:
July 2003: Krishnan & Kanishk formed a new band, Joe and Abhishek left college, Karthik joined Beyond the Barriers. Within a week of joining Beyond the Barriers, Karthik got a call from Krishnan regarding an Audition for a Bass player.Karthik got through the auditions and later on came to know about the existence of a Band called "Decibel".

The lineup then was:

Ananth - Vocals
Kanishk - Guitars
Rahul - Guitars
Karthik - Bass
Krishnan - Drums

The first lineup jammed for a good 2 months and got to play @ IIT-D prelims. Decibel got good reviews for their first performance by various other bands. Later in October, Rock street Journal organized a pub gig @ Mezz where Decibel opened for Them clones along with Incognito. 2 days before the gig Rahul had to leave the band due to personal issues. It was a huge setback as it was Decibel's first 'gig'.But the Band somehow managed to pull it off but alas it was a disaster.

Scene 5:
November 2003: Kanishk went to the US for further studies and Ananth went back to his hometown. The band was left with Krishnan & Karthik. Karthik lost all hope and got his hair cut :p while Krishnan further improved his skills.

Scene 6:
Summers of 2004: An anonymous person responds to a 3 month old classified posted by Decibel regarding a guitarist. With Kanishk in town for Holidays, Decibel fixed a jam. That anonymous person was Siddharth from DPS RK Puram who was in 12th at that time, fed up of playing with his school band Apocalypse and deeply influenced by Megadeth he came for a Decibel jam.

After the Jam ended it, the scene was thus..
Decibel asked Siddharth, to join Decibel and Siddharth's only condition was to keep him as a guitarist.

After 2-3 months of jamming the band needed a second guitarist. Siddharth fixed a meeting with Ripple (Considered to be the Best guitarist at School level, Delhi) @ Pepsi Storm 2005. Now the only missing link was a vocalist. Siddharth received a call from an organizer who needed a band for a local show. Since Decibel lacked a vocalist,the organizer helped Decibel by providing them with Vijay's Contact number. Decibel also fixed a Jam with another Vocalist 'Akshar Bhan' at his home in Defence Colony where the auditions took place. Vijay was finalised and finally Decibel 2.0 was formed.

With

Vijay - Vocals
Siddharth - Guitars
Ripple - Guitars
Karthik - Bass
Krishnan - Drums

Decibel's first gig happened in September 2005 which was again at IIT-D. This time the band played at the 13th Slot and was selected as a Backup Band for IIT-D Finals. Though the band could not play play in finals, it was huge moral boost for any New band who gets into finals of IIT-D one of the countries Best Rock Competitions. The band then went on to play @ BITS Pilani where krishnan got seriously ill and the band couldn't perform well. Eventually band couldn't play in finals.

In late 2005 Decibel 2.0 got their first pub gig @ Taj, My Kind Of Place. It was a fun gig where disco sound was used, Anupam (Narsil) handled the console. Later, the band got selected for Campus Rock Idols Delhi Finals and also for First ever Fringe Festival.

the Bands Gig chart was :-

2003
IIT-Delhi Prelims.
Them Clones, Decibel, Incognito @ The Mezz October 2003.

2005:
Hotel Taj MKOP.
BITS-Pilani Prelims.
IIT-Delhi Prelims: Backup Band for the Finals.
Campus Rock Idols Delhi Finalist
Fringe Festival: Levitikus, Decibel, Messiah.

Contd....