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METROSCAPE
Bands Blast
Four bands, three countries and rare kinds of
rock. "United For Gujarat", a concert held recently at the Nehru
Stadium, Delhi, brought together Sufi rock band Junoon from Pakistan,
Euphoria and Silk Route from India and Bangla rock group Miles from Bangladesh
to perform in aid of quake victims in Gujarat. The groups performed free,
the proceeds going to the care today fund.
There was dance before song. The opening act
was a performance by The Danceworx. Then Silk Route, with a song on Kismet
and the inevitability of destiny. Four songs later they were doing Dooba
Dooba. Miles were on cue.
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| SOULFUL SAMPLE: Pakistan's Junoon |
Rock is not something one associates with Bengali
bhadraloks. Rabindra Sangeet still rules in the popular perception of
Bangla music-Miles and its genre have a long way to go, though the band
has been playing since 1979. With attitude and power chords and the rock
look down to their leather pants.
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| BAND WIDTH: The four rock bands perform together |
"Bands have come here from across the border
... our own people have not come. That's Delhi for you." Euphoria's
Palash Sen was miffed at the low turnout but it didn't do his performance
any harm. In typical energetic (and shirtless) style he sang, among other
things, a medley of Sayonee, Dooba Dooba and Miles' Phiriye Dao to the
beat of Queen's We Will Rock You.
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| BANGLA ROCK: Miles on the go |
Junoon obviously marches to a different beat
than the ISI. "A love song from Pakistan to India" is what they
did first. Sayonee apart, they also sang a heavy rock version of poet
Iqbal's famous couplet Khudi Ko Kar Buland Itna that would have given
ghazal lovers nervous breakdowns.
They were saving the best for last. In a subcontinental
confluence of tunes, Junoon called all the bands together to sing their
hit songs. By then it was close to midnight, and people had been there
for over six hours. But that last act had them dancing on the chairs.
-Samrat Choudhury
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MEN PLEASE: Fashion designer Namrata G presented a sequence of western
and Indian formals at a show in Bangalore's Windsor Manor Sheraton last
week, but that's not the only reason why the applause was emphatic. The
show marked the launch of the The Cherry Club, a energetic sisterhood
of working women (yes, men are barred), aged between 20 to 45 years, who
according to event manager and founder Dinesh Kumar, "can meet and
network since there was no forum for women in the city". The turnout
for the "Eve-ning", as it was called, was rapturous-more than
200 women showed up and final members of the club will be selected from
among them after a round of interviews.
-Stephen David
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METRO TODAY
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