concert review
Time and tide waits for Atif!
Performer par excellence: Atif Aslam (above) knows how to rock a crowd. He moves from song to song, moving the crowd with him. It's his energy on stage that makes everyone stand up and take notice.

Roxen turned on an audience that Annie danced with so Atif could come and brush it off!

By Amira Zaidi
 
How politely can one describe a slightly mismanaged event? JB and Jaws Productions made a great effort to gather the perfect combination of artistes at a posh venue of the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club, Lahore. Only that the event was meant to start at 7pm but there was a ladder or two floating around two hours later and even worse, the skin of the billboard was still being nailed in at the back. The sound system that played random hit tracks was echoing till the court filled up, but the cables still twitched. The noise of the audience was too apparent in the speakers facing us. We twiddled our thumbs till the first real band to make its appearance three and a half hours later. It was Roxen.
 
But there were a couple of people who tried to entertain the Annie-Atif-starved audience before that. To start off with, the vocalist of an underground band Har Aik Zeher sang 'Purple Days'. Then there was The Rising, who sang in such an amateurish way that someone behind us commented, "that sounded like a nursery rhyme." Their only saving grace was when they sang 'With or without you', which sounded quite harmonious. But throughout this period, there were constant sound checks, which usually artistes come for during the day and it obviously looked like they hadn't. One band that had been advertised and was missing was Sahil. When the audience thought that they were waiting for them, some boys getting impatient began to make jokes and slogans like "Hamari ticketein lelo, Annie de do". When the girls countered this with,
"Atif! Atif! Atif!" the boys laughed "Sab behno ka aik hee bhai, Atif Bhai, Atif Bhai." It was quite hilarious.
 
Finally there was some action on stage. The host Shakeel Zahid came at almost 10pm and entertained the audience with an improvised Indian Idol kind of show, calling random people on stage to sing. Majority of them sang Atif's songs and one child named Bilal sang his 'Doorie' exactly the way it is sung and there were hearts melting in the crowd. He also won himself an award. When the audience would start yawning, the host would throw in a false teaser about Annie and Atif having arrived at the venue. This was when the lights began to show their work too, courtesy of Farhad Humayun. The stage was lit spectacularly in different colors with just the right amount falling on the audience, not putting too much strain on the eyes and yet at the brink of keeping them eager to glare at the stage, and later on, with more admiration.
 
 

Roxen was new to many. And smartly enough, the vocalist Mustafa sang cover songs too, as long as the audience was up on their feet, which seemed to be his mission. It was lots of rock music and one Indian pop song that left a mark. He sang three of his own, 'Yaadein', 'Tou Phir' and 'Sapnay' along with two covers. Who would've thought this forgotten one would've brought a happy buzz to an audience, Woh Lamhe's 'Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai' and the last was 'Jazba-e-Junoon'. Very apt. The audience was set in just the right mood with lots of vigour and excitement for the later artistes to come. Next was Annie queued at the steps visible to all, just waiting to be called on, while model Nael ushered bunch of fans away from her. But it feels callow to write so little about the performance of Roxen and to have almost nothing to say about the six-foot tall vocalist's silhouette leaning back against the stage lights giving out misty alaaps. Attire wise, he was just perfect; black cargo trousers, the belt undone and a small white jacket that changed colors as he moved along the stage. This is how the new artiste picks a song – the song being his ballad "Tou Phir", which by the way, is to hit Bollywood sometime soon. He'd too, give this a rock style on stage with a boyish haircut and short head banging. Out of no where, he'd bend his knees, hold the mic in both hands and draw the audience to himself with the first words of the song "Hum... Rahein Na Rahein" but the tempo fast, which sounded less like a ballad and more like a rock song. He was so with it.

When Annie came on stage, the mood took a new dimension, as if the show was never late and no one was ever cold. There were smiles everywhere and the biggest one on her face. Every person in the audience was now on their feet and the children on their chairs swinging World Call mini flags in the air. She shouted "What's up Lahore?" and the crowd roared. Throughout her performance the 'Mahiya' teaser was blended before and after and sometimes during the songs. It has so many versions now, the hip-hop one and the bhangra one to count a couple. She was great at improvising them. Visually, she was a treat too. She wore a peach, hooded, petite top and gray jeans. Her bouncy curls and hoop ear-rings were cutely typical of her. She danced like it was for herself, like in a dimly lit club where no one watched. She sang her title song 'Princess', then 'Koka', 'Deewani and 'Mahiya' – everything that it took to make a concert that happening. She made no bones about swaying down in front of the camera or doing the hip-hop thing wherever the beat caught her, regardless of where she was facing. Her confidence was her selling point and also the fulfillment of people's tickets for the evening, especially the backbenchers whom only she included in the enjoyment.

However, how could one feel it to be complete without the performance of Atif Aslam? The girls from the start had been chanting his name when others were contemplating going home early. When he walked in, it was like Elvis Presley deja vu. And he immediately jumped from song to song, 'Ankhon Se' to 'Dil Haray' and 'Ehsaas'. But he was clean-shaven and he wore a silly mustard woven cap to match his mustard shirt that hid under the black jacket. Last I saw at the London Mela some six months back, he had worked up that charm through shampooed straight here, flicking, head banging, spinning on his foot and the works! But he was tucked away in a jacket. There was no sweat. And to top it all, someone's manager had managed to pick a fight with someone at the corner of the stage and no matter how the concert progressed, those boys refused to step down. But still that Thursday night did not seem like a school night. Regardless of the mismanagement, some DAT singing and the lack of effort by the bigger artistes', it was still a very rocky night. Every teeny bopper was dancing to mid-tempo songs as if they were hardcore bhangra. Even 'Doorie', a not-so-fantastic composition, sounded nice. Atif has magic in his voice. And when he sang 'Aadat' and slowly reclined back in one of his powerful alaaps, the audience did so too. Just like the crowd does the wave at a cricket match, here the boys leaned all the way back and some girls had to push them straight. When he sang 'Tere Bin', the evening had already climaxed and soon after, he merged the song with Adnan Sami's 'Bheegi Bheegi Raaton Mein'. Thank god the weather forecast went wrong because it was meant to be a bheegi bheegi raat at the outdoor tennis courts of the Royal Palm and that might have just been the icing on the cake.