<img title="Audience sit in rapt attention as a performance is in progress at a Sofar concert in the city. PIC/Sahil Kotwani" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2016/sep/11-Audience.jpg" alt="Audience sit in rapt attention as a performance is in progress at a Sofar concert in the city. PIC/Sahil Kotwani" /> Audience sit in rapt attention as a performance is in progress at a Sofar concert in the city. PIC/Sahil Kotwani
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Imagine turning up at a concert doorstep having no idea who&rsquo;s going to play. Imagine not knowing where to arrive until only two days are left. And imagine being entirely clueless about who you&rsquo;ll meet in the course of the musical evening. That&rsquo;s Sofar Sounds for you. If unanswered questions like these are your thing, then funnily enough, this place has all the answers. But this is not a mere gimmick to tease. Spread across 271 cities around the world, Sofar Sounds is a secret gigs community that works with the singular aim of protecting live music from its plaguing distractions &mdash; glasses clinking, animated whispers, smart phone intrusions &mdash; and keep it just about the music. As an audience, if you are not completely invested in the music, then there&rsquo;s no place for you in their concerts. And the only way to ensure that, they believe, is by maintaining a certain degree of exclusivity.
<img title="Nikhil D&rsquo;souza " src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2016/sep/11-Nikhil-Dsouza.jpg" alt="Nikhil D&rsquo;souza " /> Nikhil D&rsquo;souza
Its Mumbai leg kicked off in May this year and they have held four concerts until now. For musician Nikhil D&rsquo;Souza, the experience was massively differently from playing at a pub. &ldquo;In a pub, the audience is more interested in meeting friends and having a good time, while we play in the background. In a Sofar concert, people show up for the music alone. That&rsquo;s the biggest compliment for an artist &mdash; people listening to your music, no matter the size of the stage,&rdquo; he says.
Typically, a concert accommodates between 40-80 people, handpicked by the organisers. Arul Kacker city leader, Sofar Bombay, says that they try to keep the guest list diverse. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had people in their 50s and their 20s in the same room. We want to develop a space that&rsquo;s free of judgment.&rdquo;
The venue is revealed two days before the concert and the lineup announced once all have assembled at the venue. Natasha Vakil, who runs an Airbnb, hosted a concert in her living room. &ldquo;I could only fit about 40. As an audience, you don&rsquo;t feel removed from the musicians. They are like friends performing for you.&rdquo; Arul adds, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the kind of environment where you don&rsquo;t want to be the guy whose phone went off in the middle of a concert.&rdquo;
Also, this is not a ticketed event. At the end of the concert, they pass around a hat for donations. Arul says, &ldquo;We manage to cover costs, but over and above that, there&rsquo;s only enough left for a round of beers.&rdquo; For all its secrecy, this coterie appears to be rapidly growing &mdash; they already have over 300 applications for their next gig on September 25. To attend a concert, all you need to do is log on to their website www.sofarsounds.com.
Arul stresses that Sofar is not about independent music, it&rsquo;s about independent artists. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to pigeonhole ourselves to our own tastes. We are on the lookout for artists across genres. If we like a particular sound, we approach them while they are, of course, free to approach us.&rdquo;
And while some extra monetary muscle might surely be of help, they don&rsquo;t want to get entangled with sponsors. &ldquo;Essentially, we are music curators. We don&rsquo;t want to surrender any inch of the curating to others,&rdquo; Arul says.

Sofar Sounds Bombay, a secret concert community, seems to have mastered the art of getting heard by keeping quiet

A Musical Secret

Shout-out to all bikers for a weekend camp in the lush forests of Penn

Sofar Sounds Bombay, a secret concert community, seems to have mastered the art of getting heard by keeping quiet

A Musical Secret

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A Musical Secret

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