Musical secrets

Started out of a small living room in London, Songs From a Room (Sofar Sounds) began with the intention of setting up musical gigs in quiet intimate spaces unlike the chaos of a concert and traditional live music experience. But there is something that makes Sofar Sounds more interesting that their idea of music gigs. Their whole model functions on secrecy — interested people have to sign up for a particular event and will only receive the venue and timing one day before the gig. In fact, even the performers aren’t revealed.

Founded in 2010, it was only last year that they organised their first gig in Mumbai. In the duration of just a year, they have come a long way, organising one gig every month. Arul Kacker, city leader at Mumbai, who is in charge of organising these gigs, recalls how they went about organising events in their infancy. “In the beginning we used to perform in living rooms, and that was our plan to continue with. But you know Mumbai and the small spaces in this city. It became difficult to organise a musical gig hosting around 60 to 70 people in a living room,” he says. Since then, the community has moved on to host their musical evenings in much bigger, but still intimate spaces, such as art galleries, open air terraces and even stores. “We are always looking for establishing an intimate environment to host our evenings at. We want it to be a lot like a gathering of like-minded people and less of a music gig,” he says.

The audience enjoying on a gig night.

Considering how interested people have to sign up for the month’s gig, Arul, who works as a business analyst full time, gives an insight in the working of Sofar Sounds. “We had our anniversary line-up just last month and almost 1,200 people had signed up. Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to accommodate so many people, and we ended up sending the invite to only sixty people. Each person is allowed to get a plus one,” he says. Since only a handful of people are sent invitations in comparison to those who applied, Arul says their aim is keep the audience diverse. “We try keeping the guest list variable by consciously calling new guests who have applied for the first time. We keep it unbiased — this way the audience is more communal and the vibe is more organic,” he explains.

In a city that has just begun to embrace its live music culture, Arul says that they keep their gigs community-driven instead of artist-driven. “We don’t pick the artist based on how much crowd they can pull, no. Sometimes we host established artists and sometimes, young, upcoming talent.”

On gig nights, they open the venue doors at 6.30 pm, expecting people to be punctual and allow them to enter till 7 pm. Each performance lasts 30 minutes with a 15- minute long break between each performance. “The breaks are for the audience to mingle with each other,” Arul says, calling it a night at around 10 pm. “The audience isn’t just looking to listen to live music — they are there to meet new people too,” he says, adding that because they host a specific demographic of young people, they provide a no-judgement space, where people can not just enjoy the music but also enjoy the company of strangers swaying to the same music. “We come across so many new comers to the city who want to get to know the city and its people more. They attend our shows for music, the people and the experience,” he concludes.