Beatles, Clapton and beyond: Chennai’s Bay 146 to host British Invasion soirée

Did you know that Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ was born out of his unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his close friend and Beatles legend George Harrison? Or that Phil Collins’ ‘Another Day in Paradise’ is about a privileged passer-by who sees suffering but chooses to walk on?

Sindhuja Sankaran, lead vocalist of Squirrels in the Attic and a psychologist, will be speaking about the stories, inspiration and little-known trivia behind some of the biggest names in Western music at Bay 146 Resto Lounge, a live music venue in Chennai, on September 11, when the cover band performs a British Invasion tribute show.

The British Invasion is a 1960s musical movement that saw pop and rock acts from the UK gain popularity across the world. “The Beatles’ arrival in New York City marked the beginning of the movement. We will also be symbolically starting this show with a Beatles song,” says Sindhuja. She adds, “We are very genre-fluid. We have done classic rock, 80s rock, retro, alternative indie, and pop rock. For our coming show, we want to explore music across the years and look at how British music and British artistes evolved,” she says.

The band’s setlist will feature around 25 artistes, which includes songs such as Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, Deep Purple’s ‘Burn’, Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ and Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’, spanning different eras and sounds.

Sindhuja also shares that her band reinvents and experiments with songs that they are performing. “As musicians, what is the point if we’re just going to do a carbon copy of the original? We don’t want to do that. At one gig, we took ABBA’s ‘Mamma Mia’ and made it slow, with just piano, bass and vocals.”