By Kamran Hashim
Most eagerly awaited concert of 2018 the ‘Red Bull Music Sound-Clash’ took place at Karachi Gymkhana’s spacious cricket ground. Concert started-off at around 10:00 pm which is 2½” hours late. For public concerts this kind of late has become some sort of a norm and no-one seemed to care much about this delay.
‘Red Bull Music Sound-Clash’ was also termed as ‘Pop vs Rock’ contest by many mainstream & social media outlets. This show featured Pakistan’s two greatest ever musical acts ‘ALI-AZMAT’ representing the hard side of music known as rock-music and ‘STRINGS’ representing much softer side of music known as pop-music.
Once you enter the concert arena, Strings were on the left side and Ali Azmat’s on right side. Whoever had the idea of clashing these two genres of music had no idea what music is all about, but he did succeed in creating enough hype to rope-in 10,000 music lovers from Karachi to this so called sound clash. This was also one the best behaved crowd that I had seen in a long long time.
First round consisting of original tracks kicked-off with Ali Azmat firing it up with his power house vocals by singing rangeela followed by yaar bina dil nahi laggta and then pappu yaar. The moment Ali Azmat uttered first words from his song rangeela, this so called sound clash was decided. Ali Azmat’s powerful vocal chords were simply too much for String’s duo of Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood. Almost every aspect of team Ali Azmat’s performance felt spot-on. From vocals by Ali Azmat, guitars by Omran Shafique and Mannu, drums by and tabla by Ustaad Aashiq Ali, all of it synchronized to perfection, it seemed as team Ali Azmat had rehearsed well.
Then came Strings with their originals dhaani and zinda hoon. Both these tracks felt like bed time stories with drums from Ahad only bright side of them. Their final song hay koi ham jaisa created a minor sort of stir among the crowd, but that was due to its patriotic feel not because of its music nor of its vocals. Overall performance by team Strings felt very ordinary and lacked fire as compared to team Ali Azmat. Only exception being Ahad Nayani, who was an equal match to his competitor of the day.
Result for first round was team Ali Azmat wining by a clear margin.
Second round of the this contest was dubbed as the cover round where both teams had to cover a song chosen by the DJ and DJ Faisal Baig chose dil mai tum by Mohsin Raza Khan popularly known as Bunny. As expected second round was also won by team Ali Azmat, whereas team Strings made a mess of 90’s era most iconic song. At the end of second round team Ali Azmat was leading by two-nil.
Third round, the take-over round was an equally fought contest with team Strings crooning out their iconic song sar kiay ye pahar and team Ali Azmat couldn’t do justice with this song. Same was the case with team Strings as they failed to add much energy to Ali Azmat’s song deewna. Third round result was a tie. Result after third round stayed at two-nil.
Fourth round of this sound clash was based on music genres, with DJ faisal Baig choosing the music genre for both teams who then tried their best to deliver that genre as best as they could. First genre that was given by DJ to team Strings was dandia and they did well to theme their song deewna into dandia style music. Bilal’s soothing voice and his soft vocals did justice with the improvised version of deewna.
Second genre of fourth round was rockabilly (a form of rock n roll) to which team Ali Azmat who sang their mera mahi which was obviously not of that genre, but Ali Azmat is notorious for not going the book.
Third genre of fourth round punk rock and again team Strings seemed to be struggling with their recent song sajni which felt more life glam rock rather than punk rock.
Fourth genre of fourth round for team Ali Azmat was glam rock and they did well by choosing garaj baras, where Ali Azmat gave a very improvised performance with his vocals and was seen to have taken lead here.
Fifth genre of fourth round was un-plugged and team Strings gave their best performance of the day by mil gaya koi. Bilal’s soft and mellow voice coupled with vocals were exemplary and was highlight of team Strings performance for the night. Such was the performance that Ail Azmat couldn’t stay away from sledging.
Sixth genre of fourth round for team Ali Azmat consisted of folk rock and they chose to perform sayoonee, which felt like a decent choice but for the first time during the clash Ali Azmat seemed off colour. Fourth round went team Strings with the score line of (two-nil) from three rounds within the fourth round, taking the final score line to (two-one).
Then came the fifth round – the wild card round for both contestants. Team Ali Azmat brought in another power-house Call the band, while team Strings chose to bring in Ahmed Jehanzaib for their wild card entry. Call performed dharti kay khuda which as was an equal match to team Ali Azmat’s earlier power packed performance. Ahmed Jehanzaib sang durr which didn’t fit well to mood of sound clash. Another win for team Ali Azmat with score line showing as (three-one).
For sixth and final of the contest also dubbed as finale, team Ali Azmat started off with yaaro yahi dosti hay for which Bilal Maqsood, Faisal Kapadia, Ahmed Jehanzaib, Junaid and Xulfi also joined in to make the finale a very memorable one for fans of either side. For finale team Strings sang hay koi ham jaisa which they had also performed earlier, they were also joined by other vocalist Ali Azmat, Ahmed Jehanzaib, Junaid, Xulfi to show what unity is all about. Finale also belonged to team Ali Azmat taking the final score-line to (four-one).
On concluding note my personal views about this contest are that; almost all the musicians performed to perfection and had rehearsed very well. Special mention for Ahad Nayani who was exceptional al throughout the show. Sound had some minor issues but that is part and parcel of any live performance. On vocals front best performer of the night was Ali Azmat. Bilal Maqsood taking the second spot, followed by Faisal Kapadia, Junaid and then Ahmed Jehanzaib.
Apart from music contest, other aspect of show were also spot-on. Security arrangements were excellent too and that too coupled with one the best behaved crowd that I had seen in a long long time.
