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Guitarist and a storyteller!
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Listening to Peter Finger on the acoustic guitar gave the audience at The Park a heady feeling
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ENTHRALLING SHOW Peter Finger
Peter Finger has been appropriately named. His greatness lies in his fingers, which roam deftly over the six strings and bring out a music that's simply entertaining. However, the `Finger-Magic Guitarfest — It's ecstatic and acoustic!' at The Park organised recently by ACTS, a Bangalore-based NGO engaged in education, health and environment, left the audience asking themselves a question — "Which excels the other — his story-telling ability or his skills on the acoustic guitar?"
Actually the two complement each other, as was evident in "Skeletons Dance". Based on a poem by a German poet who lived 200 years ago, it related a creepy, midnight tale. The story began with dozens of skeletons venturing out of their graves for a bit of social dancing. The watchman's eyes popped out, but later he settled down to enjoying the performance. From then on, Finger related a series of occurrences with irony and wry humour that had the audience hanging on to every word. The story ended with one skeleton falling down and dying; the house erupted in laughter. Wonder followed laughter, as Finger presented all the sequences on his acoustic guitar.
He persisted with the narrative-precedes-performance technique. He spoke about an imaginary situation - "people suddenly started to buy tickets to watch my show" and he found himself raking in the moolah. This new wealth enabled him to bring home, ironically, a very old diesel car, which would require the driver to push the glow-button for three minutes. In a connected situation, he found himself playing the guitar wild. The girls screamed and invaded the stage. As they were followed by the rest of the audience, Finger made his escape through the back door and jumped into the car. And the punch line: "I make my getaway after pushing the glow-button for THREE minutes". The composition is called "Getaway".
Finger does not mind much about where his compositions belong. Before playing one, he admitted he did not know whether what would follow was jazz or blues or something else. And the nameless music was classic. The guitar-fest would not have been as successful without Konarak Reddy (known for his improvisations on the guitar and for having composed the soundtracks for award-winning films such as Pattabhi Rama Reddy's "Paper Boats & Devarakadu" and Erika Surat Anderson's "Somewhere in Between"). Playing a composition "dedicated to one Sneha, who loved people and theatre", he strung together Hindustani and Carnatic styles. Konarak and Finger gave a fusion performance towards the end. The show ended on a funny note - when someone yelled "one more song", Finger cheerfully piped up, "It's beer time!" However, for the audience the "heady feeling" had begun much earlier in the evening - when Finger plucked the strings for the first time.
PRINCE FREDERICK
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