Afire

The choir was hard at practice. The Merry An Singers were rehearsing for another of their shows. Soon break time came along and their guest guitarist sat in a corner at the Deva Surya Sena Centre, strumming away as guitarists are wont to do. There is nothing quite like the lure of a guitar for young folk and soon a curious chap sidled up. One thing led to another and soon a little Simon & Garfunkel session started up.

The guitarist was Rienzi Pereira and the curious chap was Naushad Rassool.

This casual meeting birthed one of Sri Lanka's foremost western folk groups – Flame.

Naushad had a friend Roshan Premasinghe, who also sang like a dream and more importantly, their voices blended beautifully! Plus they shared similar musical tastes. The two of them were planning to take part in a folk and country music concert Country Roads and they wanted to sing Simon and Garfunkel's "American Tune." They'd got the singing right, but the guitar accompaniment eluded them. This found them at Rienzi's door one day…. and the rest is history.

The trio went as Roshan, Naushad and Rienzi since, as Roshan put it, "Let's see where we go with this." The concert went down well and in 1989 the trio were gigging regularly at the Mount Royal Beach Hotel.

Talent won out… so a break and an audition at the Taj Hotel, Colombo in 1989 saw the trio, who were by now known as Flame, performing a Wednesday night at the lobby bar.

The power of two voices and a single guitar (occasionally two or even three guitars) brought the music of Simon & Garfunkel, the Eagles, the BeeGees, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, James Taylor, Don McLean and a host of others to an amazed audience. The format was unique in an era of four, five and six-piece bands. These were days before the duo/trio formats became popular – even then, these were two voices and an acoustic guitar…no tracked, sampled music here!

Over 10 years from then on, Flame at the Taj lobby bar became a real draw… a forerunner perhaps of later "happening" night spots… it was where you went on a Saturday night…

Over the years, the trio became a quartet, a quintet and even a sextet as an eclectic mix of musicians and singers came and went… always embellishing the music!

What else is unique about Flame? Well, the Flame bandstand is a laidback place. The music whilst having been put together by the usual process of rehearsal, is at the same time rendered with a real joy of spontaneity, born of musicians who are talented enough to listen and follow improvisation when it happens… much like in the jazz world.

Flame also welcomed many others to their bandstand… sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn't… and the band could have been faulted for such indiscipline. But oh, how it has worked for them over the years!

And so the band grew. Here's their "roll call" over the years, as people came and went. The nucleus was our trio. Then came Ikram Miskin and Siraj Saboor. Then Suranga Fonseka, Primal Liyanage, Joe Lappen, Chamath Ariyadasa ("I want to play with you guys". "What do you play?" "Guitar" "Sorry… Rienzi and Primal do that..what else?" "Well, a bit of keyboards?"…and what a keyboard player he turned out to be for Flame), Rafi Buksh, Lenny Vittachchi, Shane De Silva and Allan Outschoorn.

Of this lot, only Joe was a professional musician at the time he joined Flame. Later Primal played in Wildfire, Blind Faith, Boomerang and the Contraband (today, he is back with Flame) and Rafi played in Kings and Aquarius. Joe is now with Ultimate.
The band also played great venues – the Taj, the Galadari, the Continental, Clancy's, Molly's and now UBG and Sequel.

We are in the year 2007 now. Flame has moved on to regular gigs at the UBG (Jaic Hilton) on Fridays and Sequel (ex-Cascades, at Cinnamon Grand Hotel) on Saturdays. The requirements at the two venues aptly reflect another of Flame's qualities – their ability to change track from the good time, driving passion of the UBG to a stripped down, mellow approach at Sequel.

Add their performances at hundreds of weddings and a bunch of top class concerts to several gigs overseas and you get a group that's at the top of their game and who know how to please a wide audience.

Flame today comprises two of their founders, Naushad Rassool (vocals, occasional guitar) and Rienzi Pereira (guitars, backing vocals) plus Chris De Alwis (vocals, guitar), Primal Liyanage (vocals, guitars), Ranjan Josiah(Bass, guitars), Lal De Silva (Bass, vocals) and drummer Niroshan De Silva, who is an alumnus of top drummer Aruna Siriwardene.

After Roshan left so many years ago, Naushad has at last been able to find a voice to complement his in Chris, who has the facility to sing the "sweet stuff" of S & G as well as the gravelly Brian Adams heart jerkers. To this mix you add the supreme talents of Primal – awesome guitar playing and a sing anything voice – the acoustic guitar of Rienzi, the "touch sensitive" bass and guitar of Ranjan, the fabulous oldies and driving bass guitar of Lal and the slick stickwork of drummer Niroshan and you have a really great group.

Hearing them, it's hard to imagine that most of them are employed in fields like IT, Banking, Telecom, Marketing, Commerce and Publishing and the music is just a passionate hobby.

Acclaim they have enjoyed over the almost two decades the band has been playing. The German airline, Lufthansa discovered them in Colombo and took them to Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi to play at their corporate events, where they wowed the guests.

Recognised as they were by audiences everywhere they played, they hit the headlines in 1994 by receiving the Golden Clef Award as Folk Band of the Year in a competition judged by their peers in the music industry.

The music of Flame is steeped in the timeless classics of the '60s and '70s, with more than a passing nod to more contemporary artistes. There's folk, folk/rock, rock and roll and even some vintage rock! The band covers a bit of Eric Clapton, Dire Straits and even Pink Floyd and Santana along with the folk stuff.

What does the future hold for Flame?

A concert is on the cards… the band's first of its own. Slated for sometime in early 2008, it's in the planning stage now and music is being put together and rehearsals begun. Some originals have been composed and are being worked on to see how they'll pan out. The concert format will differ from what audiences have been used to and more will be revealed later!