Celebrating the arrival of spring with Red Baraat

A large screen projecting trippy, kaleidoscopic images was the backdrop at Lebanon Opera House on Saturday, March 16, when the pioneering, Brooklyn-based band Red Baraat took the stage. Red Baraat, a 7-piece band of rock and brass instruments with a cool factor of 11, is on their annual Festival of Colors tour, a celebration of the Hindu holiday of Holi welcoming spring and known for the vibrant-colored powders exchanged by jubilant revelers.

While these powders weren’t thrown in our newly renovated theater (no one wanted to give Joe a heart attack), I can attest to the jubilant revelers, who quickly left their seats when the show began and took to dancing in the open space in front of the stage. At one point, Red Baraat’s charismatic frontman Sunny Jain, who sings and plays the dhol, a two-sided drum from the Punjab region in South Asia, invited members of the audience to take the stage for a friendly dance competition. I tried to get my 9-year-old son to get up on stage, but he was more comfortable watching, wide-eyed from the audience.

It’s this sense of participation in whatever way is comfortable for the individual that stood out to me at the show. Whether you were a brave dance contestant on the stage, cheering encouragement in the audience, dancing and singing boisterously along with Sunny’s energetic chorus, or comfortably seated — hypnotized by that trippy screen — you were having your own best experience in community with others.

It was a wonderful night to share in South Asian culture and celebrate color through the diaspora of sound. Anyone who attended won’t soon forget the evening, except perhaps my other 5-year-old son, who — in spite of all the sounds and lights and energy — fell asleep before the show was over. But, like I said, everyone was welcome and able to live their own experience.