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| Sunday, 14 November 2004 |
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Misty - the password to success by Mahes Perera
A six piece outfit, Misty originally was a duo group before Rajitha Rupasinghe keyboardist/vocalist decided to add on the other instruments and now the band has matured into a reckoning force. Today Sunday November 14, Misty jets across to Bahrein to be the featured band at the Sri Lanka Club dance on November 15 and we understand there are more foreign dates for them. "From a five piece band I've made it a six piece with a new keyboardist Nishantha de Alwis. This will help take the load off me 'cos I handle the vocals. The others in the band are Dhammika Caldera - sax/acoustic guitar, there's Dennis White on drums, Marlon Mendis - lead guitar and Sanjeewa Hettige bass. We recently returned from Germany where we played for the Sri Lanka Week at Frankfurt, sponsored by SriLankan Airlines. There was the Sri Lankan food festival, an open golf tournament which was followed by a Gala Dance at Steinberger, Bathomburg Frankfurt. What was the music the Germans wanted? "We had to play the traditional music, like the Vienna Waltzes and swing jazz standards for dancing, so we scored with 'Mack the Knife' and 'What a Wonderful World.' But of course we had to play the pop hits too and we found that the repertoire of the '70s and '80s went down very well with the German music lovers. Before we came back home we also had a date in London when we played for the Sri Lanka Cricket Dance - London Branch which was held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel." Having gone abroad and played at many dance events what's your experience like? "This is all something new for us. We never expected to be playing at short notice at so many countries. As a result we had to be on our toes and be alert where our repertoire is concerned. Which meant that we had to rehearse and be ready with a wide repertoire for each trip. Playing in Europe is different. The sound balancing is meticulous. In London we had a girl sound engineer called Emma. She was efficient and we felt extremely comfortable and confident. In Japan there was a crew assisting in the sound balance and their professionalism was great. We miss such expertise here in Sri Lanka. I think all dance bands must have a professional sound engineer - which would mean that the fee of the band has to increase and clubs and hotels must take this factor into consideration. An important factor expressed by Rajitha which we guess other bands should begin to follow. A few bands in today's music industry do have a professional sound engineer as against the 'sound man' a familiar figure behind the mixer. We do hope for the future development of the industry the day will arrive when the 'sound man' will recede into the background. If you haven't experienced the music of Misty before, then make it a point to catch their vibes weekly at the Hilton Colombo on Sundays and Mondays and on Wednesdays at The Mix at Taj Samudra. What holds for the future? "Actually I've been toying with idea of recording tracks for a CD by Misty containing a mixture of our dance music - the medleys especially, and some originals we are working on" says Rajitha who was ready to talk about the band and their music to be shared with the reading public even though we pulled him out of his bed at 12 noon. |
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He's a singer with a difference. He's young, sports the fashionable
'bald headed' look, enjoys singing like the famous Satchmo the Great -
Louis Armstrong, and he leads the dance group Misty - the password to
success in Sri Lanka's music scene today.
