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Dhruv Visvanath “I expect Big Gig to have a lot of energy…something very cosmic. When they are walking out of the gig, hopefully they would be humming a tune in their heads.”

Dhruv Visvanath Trio in Big Gig Exclusive Festival

In his own words, a “… solo percussive acoustic guitarist as my friends call me…” Dhruv Visvanath is a one-man band. A self-taught guitarist, he’s also a trained pianist, a self-taught drummer, bassist and djembe player. Known for his mellow acoustic numbers such as “He Said She Said” and others, he  is poetic in his rendition, as though magically perfect for the hills, luckily so, for he is scheduled to perform at Big Gig Exclusive, the annual festival hosted by Big Gig Mussoorie at Landour, Mussoorie, every year.

One of the most looked-forward-to acts in this one-day festival, Dhruv is no stranger to the Himalayas. His last EP “Cosmic Dawn” in fact, was inspired by a visit to Leh, where he saw the clear constellation skyscape, a rare vision in smog-filled Delhi.

Dhruv will be playing with his band The Dhruv Visvanath Trio at the festival, and Dhruv says how his stance of playing with the band varies from when he plays on his own, “With my own music I’m very introspective and personal and with the band I’m very energetic, not just to the audience but the other members of the band as well. It is a very different sort of feeling.”

While Dhruv continues to be a singer-songwriter, before he started writing music for himself, he had written a lot of songs meant  for a band setup, with a number of instruments, so he felt that some of the ideas that he had were being completely wasted. “I wanted to explore a new dimension of my songwriting, what it is like to be to have that song as a band. I had many projects before, but this is something I felt I had more control over and I was supposed to give a part of myself, where there were more people involved, and you needed to depend on yourself to create but you have the support system.”

Dhruv tells us of an instance where one of the songs that they play as a band called “Lady of the Night” was a song that he had written long ago. “It was a simple singer-songwriter type of song, I always thought of how it could be with a band, so one day I sat down with the band and I played it and from there it built into a wonderful idea – funky and it seemed completely different from when I had written it. It all just fit perfectly, the way it was done.”

Dhruv seems excited about The Big Gig audience since he feels people who understand music will make up the audience there, and the eclectic line-up is just suited for their tastes, used to a lot of performances, and exposed to good music. For the audience at the festival, Dhruv says that they may expect a performance with “…a lot of energy, something very cosmic. When they are walking out of the gig, hopefully they would be humming a tune in their heads. ”

Listen to Dhruv Visvanath’s EP Chronicles here. To check out the whole line-up for the festival, click here. Passes available for Big Gig Exclusive at Rs. 1500. To book your tickets for Big Gig Exclusive, click here. Alternatively call Rokeby Manor at +91-135-2635604 / 05 / 06 for pre-booking your passes. For more information on the festival, visit their homepage here.

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