Music

Last Thursday I had a chance to watch Junoon (if we may call it so !) live at Blue Frog, New Delhi. It was a good show but not the same Junoon as it was with Ali Azmat and Brian being part of it. Salman Ahmed is an awesome guitarist but Ali’s vocals were something that along with Salman’s guitar made Junoon what it was in its good days. Their choice of lyrics, compositions, singing…everything was awesome. It is really sad to see that these guys parted ways. We don’t know the reason for their split and would probably never know but what we can do for sure is cherish the great music they created during their best times. ...

Someone’s comment on youtube on a video of Atta Ullah Khan: sometimes i think that i HATE pakistan…but when i go to songs of ataullah khan ,nusrat fateh ali khan ,abida parveen,,,THEN I THINK F*** HATE….“WE ARE BROTHERS”… xxx xxx New Delhi

In the recent times, if there is someone who has really seen some good success, he is Satinder Sartaaj. His albums have been selling like hot cakes, probably leaving the old and experienced singers behind too. But all is not so well. He has been criticized for few things as well. In the opinion of his hard core fans, this criticism is not justified. On the other hand, in the view of the other group, his success is fake, hyped, spoiler and not so permanent. ...

“kaun sahab nu aakhe ke inj nahi inj kar” (Literal translation is: Who can dare tell God that do it like this, not like that ?) How truly someone has put it in just a few words. A very very sad day for music and the music lovers. The “one man army”, the captain of Indian Ghazal singing Jagjit Singh is no more. And even sadder is the thing that there is no-one to carry forward his legacy. His untimely demise marks the end of an era in the Indian music. There is no one like him, of the same status, same repute. In our sub continent also, there are very few names; Mehdi Hasan already stopped singing due to his health. At this moment the singing in 2 countries was being headed by Ghulam Ali & Jagjit Singh and one of them just left us. I can’t describe in words what a tremendous loss it is. Only a month back, we saw him perform live with Ghulam Ali and I was not at all happy with his performance and complained a lot about it. Because I wanted him to sing the classics he created. I feel lucky to have seen him perform live thrice in my life. I can’t just accept that he is no more with us. ...

Just got back after watching Ghulam Ali & Jagjit Singh live in concert at Talkatora Stadium, New Delhi. It probably was for the first time that both were coming together on a single stage. The concert started with Ghulam Ali and as usual he was amazing. He started with faasle aise bhi honge and then went on to sing dil mein ek lehar si uthi hai abhi, chupke chupke, legendary Ahmed Faraz’s phir kisi rahaguzar par shayad, hungama hain kyon barpa and so on . And believe me it was an amazing performance. If someone is there after Mehdi Hasan, he is Ghulam Ali. After one and half hour Ghulam Ali freed the stage for Jagjit Singh ...

Before I start writing anything else, I must thank Narvinder Bal who actually let me know that this awesomeness was going to happen in the city. Well, watching Abida Parveen live concert was another dream come true. We reached the venue well in advance. And to our biggest surprise, we were about to enter the place where she had to perform and what we saw that she is coming from the other side and crossing from where we were standing. It was kind of so surprising that we couldn’t even manage to ask her for a photograph :( . ...

Few days ago, while going through some videos on youtube i came across a song ve asan tainu ki aakhna by Masooma Anwar. Oh boy what a voice ! She is studying MBBS and taking up singing along with the studies. Then she renders legendary Reshma’s ve main chori chori ...

Today, finally i got the chance to watch Rahat Fateh Ali Khan live in concert. As we haven’t seen Nusrat singing live so to watch Rahat perform is the closest we can get to watching Nusrat live. And yes that is true as well. No surprises here, Rahat is hugely talented. Lets first talk about the good stuff. He stared with man kunto maula and did it brialliantly. After that came 2 bollywood movie songs he has done, no wonder he did it awesomely but that was not the stuff we were interested in. Then came the real gem dillagi…Nusrat’s version is of 17 mins. It was not that long but again brilliantly did. Next was yeh jo halka halka saroor hai…& it was a mind blowing performance clearly showing what a great teacher Nusrat was and how beautifully Rahat has been trained under him. Again a long spell of bollywood stuff and then sanu ik pal chain na aave & akhian udeekdiyan. He was about to end it with dam mast qalandar but somebody requestesd to sing tere mast mast do nain (from movie Dabbang). He amazingly sung tere mast mast do nain; not really in a movie song style but at really high pitch. Amazing…amazing performance. And the ending beauty was evergreen dam mast qalandar mast mast that got everyone to clapping with the song. For me personally, the bollywood stuff was the absolute crap, firstly in a sense that that is not what Rahat’s real talent is and secondly it disturbed the flow. When he sang dillagi & halka halka saroor it was magic all around but it got disturbed with that x y z stuff from bollywood. ...

Most of the Indians go to see live concerts because: They are the people with approach and can manage to get free VIP passes and all. They are from rich section of the society and can manage to buy tickets (if any). Attending live concerts is a feel good thing and a bit of fun. The real fans of artists are generally sitting in last rows, or even worse; standing. The folks sitting in VVIP and VIP sections are the the output of above 3 points. Anyways yesterday night there was a live concert of Ghulam Ali and me and 2 of my friends were ready to enjoy and had high hopes. So we got the tickets well in advance to avoid any “not available” etc etc situation. The time printed on the ticket was of 7 PM and 2 other singers were supposed to perform before Ghulam Ali. So we reached the venue around 6:15 to find that they had just started to setup the stage and other stuff. Nothing much strange as India runs like that only. Finally after 8 PM they started entering people and we got good seats. Weather was being tricky and a rainfall was a sure thing to happen. Finally things started moving a bit and it started drizzling as well. They introduced some local signer on stage and he left after singing 1 song. Then came the two expected ones; a man and a lady and till then it was no more drizzling; it was raining. Things continued but people were waiting for Ghulam Ali only. ...

I was browsing through The Times of India website and came across a link to a video of a performance by Abida Parveen at a recent Aman ki Asha concert. I had already seen this video many times but this time more than the video, a comment caught my attention. Quoting here the same: Roopa, bangalore, says: OMG what a horrible singer with horrible voice.. Somebody without training could sing better then her…. ...