After composing music for a long time, Arijit Datta found himself at a dead end desperately hunting for a muse. Chasing melodies which only ran away from him, he was frustrated and suffered from a severe creative block. Repeatedly singing his old songs pleased the audience but did nothing for him. “Music on the whole has ceased to be a beautiful experience” he realized and it was this that finally pushed him to unplug himself from it all and pull out of the music circuit completely.

The Big M recommends: Airport

But thankfully, things did not go the way Arijit anticipated. Getting a fresh perspective he found his long lost creativity and “melody began pouring in like rain” in Arijit’s words. Everything fell into place when Arijit met Vinay Lobo who he’d only heard of in the past. Vinay on the guitar and Arijit’s lyrics led to an explosion of fantastic music. The songs were propelled to unbelievable heights with Vinay’s skill and expertise on the guitar. Vinay’s crunchy blues style with Arijits love for jazz and old classic Hindi music, proved to be a dynamic combination. Both of them knew that there was something magical in what they were doing. This is when AIRPORT happened.

Some time later Arijit was at a gig in Pune where Sid Coutto was performing with his band ‘Tough on Tobacco’. Even though Arijit knew that Sid was a killer drummer and was with Zero, he didn’t know him personally. Conversations after the gig led to a bond of mutual admiration between the two. From then on, Sid Coutto is a member of Airport. Arijit says that “When you stop chasing and accept what you have or don’t have, things just start to happen.” Airport was on a roll.

Things fell into place in a similar manner with Amit Ahuja who was a college buddy of Arijit. He jumped on board without much hesitation and finally Airport was complete.

After the awesome opening gig on 9^th December, the band is contemplating about how to progress. Should they record an album? Or focus on live gigs? Or should they write more music before making any further decisions? Let’s wait and watch Airport closely. They seem to have some great stuff in store for us. Airport in 2010 is definitely on our ‘must check out’ list.

Band Members

>Arijit Datta- Vocals/Guitar

>Vinay Lobo- Lead Guitar. Very strong blues influences. He also plays with Nikhil D’souza’s band KNAP and The Vinyls.

>Amit Ahuja- Bass.  He’s the bopper and can groove just about anything. He also plays with Shridhar/Thayil.

> Sidd Coutto- Drums. Singer & songwriter. He was recently featured in Sutasi as a composer. His songwriting made him form his own band “Tough on Tobacco” which has a happy reggae funk pop sound.

Article by Divya Srinivasan