City band IndoSoul’s performance is more than a gig. It’s an experience.

With the audience perched on the staircase inside Bay 146, the strums of the guitar and bass echoed inside the room, followed by the drums and the tabla, setting the groove for the violin to take over.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would start headbanging to Indian classical music. But that’s exactly what IndoSoul by Karthik Iyer does to you.

The band, which comprises musicians from different genres like rock and Carnatic, creates a sound more approachable than your normal classical fusion music. As the song progresses, one can sense an energy building up within the band, which it shares with its audience. You can see the audience swaying and foot-tapping to the music as the vigour picks up.

“The energy that we have on stage rubs off on the audience and then they respond to us. It’s a cycle,” says Vikram Vivekanand, who was on the guitar. “It’s essentially energy being traded.”

It wasn’t just the music that was enjoyable; the interaction among the band was a delight to watch. Cheeky smiles, winks and chuckles exchanged when one performer takes over from another, and the comical expressions of the drummer in the background, all add up to the joie de vivre that the band resonates.

“Each of us comes from a different place. We find that common point where all of us meet but we don’t go out of our own zones. And that is what brings the sound of the band,” says Ramkumar Kanakarajan, the drummer.

Featuring an exceptional play with voice tones, sounds and poetry was ‘Saramati’, a song from their latest album 2 Sides of Karma for whose release they are currently seeking crowd funding. “Saramati has English lyrics translated from the work of two poets- one Tamil and another Portugese. They have their different takes on the simple joys of life. That’s dramatised in the song and the melody,” says violonist Karthik Iyer.

As one looks around the room, one can feel the effect that the band has on its audience. One takes home not just their favourite melody of the night, but a wholesome experience.

Reshwin Nishit, the bassist, says, “We went on a tour to the US last year. There was a woman who burst into tears and told us how the show really helped her stay calm. She had just escaped from a hurricane and her friends had gotten her to the concert to take her mind off that.”

“As she said, ‘the whole two-hour experience took her to a different place.’ This is something I had never experienced before and so as a musician, I cherish it.” Although the show started a little later than expected, the announcement of the last song met with a collective no from the audience.

A woman behind me went to the extent of cajoling her boyfriend into approaching one of the performers to personally ask them to play another song. A standing ovation, with the band members waving out to their friends, brought an end to a night well spent. Karthick Iyer and his performers sure know how to show their audience a good time.