‘But where is the Rock?’

-Rock Festival minus the Rock-

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Gulls’ Rock Festival: Six Bands, One night/ Gossip, Bad performances & Some Delight.

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Saturday, October 20, 2001. Six bands from the Lahore Underground took to stage in the Rock Festival organized by the Gulls at the Alhamra Amphitheatre, Qaddafi Stadium, Lahore. Few of them rocked. Overall, the performances on the night varied from the sublime to asinine, rousing to infuriatingly yawn-inducing. There was the band that everyone had come to see and which roared and then whimpered. Then there was band which to everyone’s surprise really rocked the house. There was also the band who stank the place up and then there was a band which played brilliant music but had a number of vocalists, all of whom were not all that good. Finally, there was a band that seems to be on the verge of falling apart.

 

The festivities for the night were launched by the Call, an old hand in the Lahore Music Underground, hailing from NCA and which had been missing from action for some time. Not that that showed in their performance. It was almost as if they had never been away: their set was rollicking and playing what they call Goth Death Music, musically they remain an act to catch. The band  relied primarily on original songs from their upcoming album Justification of Existence, which on the evidence of the night is an album worth looking forward too. While the music was excellent, their achiles heel on the night was their vocalists. They had a host of different vocalists who walked on for different songs but were consistently weak, and were not helped by bad sound engineering. Come to think of it, that appeared true of most bands on the night.

 

Once is a case in point. Ifu, Once’s vocalists and lyricist, was downright bad. A seemingly genial rotund ball of flesh, he resembles Nannah (from Alif Noon) and on the night he was as rock’n’roll as the long-departed comedian. For someone who was introduced as writer of ‘serious lyrics’ (read sophomoric), Ifu is as deep as John Bon Jovi (i.e. not very) who he apparently worships. Ifu gets 10/10 for effort, but aping Jon Bon Jovi on stage does not cut it and the fact that his song selection centered around pseudo-rock numbers for the pre-pubescent (Aerosmith ballad and Bon Jovi numbers) really marred the band’s performance.  In fact, on the night there were only three good things about Once on offer: the music compositions by Zahid on guitars (Once’s songwriting is uniformly excellent: check out excerpts at www.once-undercover.com), Meekal Hassan moonlighting on bass and Ifu’s nice fashionable jacket. The bads mostly revolved around Ifu.

 

In fact, it is mindboggling that Meekal Hassan chooses to back this band on bass. Perhaps he feels a sense of obligation, having recorded their album for them at his studio. For Meekal and the rest of the band I have this advice: Once yes, but please, please, PLEASE, never again. At least not until Ifu gets rid of his Bon Jovi infatuation.

 

Once was followed on stage by Entity. At that time it seemed a good thing too, as Entity is often, brilliant. However, this time they were not.

 

In fact, Entity seems to be a band on the verge of splitting up. Clearly, there is tension in between the members and it affected their performance adversely. Actually, it has been some time since Entity has been on song: they were off-color at the Green Gig Night recently and on this night they were well below-par. The band members in fact seemed to have other things on their minds. Qasim has organized the Green Gig Night and there the band had seemed under-rehearsed and distracted. This time they were even more off, Ahmad Ali Butt, the singer, having organized the whole Rock Festival shebang.

 

A little birdie infact tells me that the band is in despair and disrepair as its bionic drummer Salman Albert has almost completed his defection to the band noori. However, as I saw it, on the night, the problems were arising between Ahmad Ali Butt and Qasim the lead guitarist. They clearly manifested themselves when after the band had finally built up a head of steam with a couple of thumping Limp Bizkit numbers, the band broke into an instrumental titled Earth Song which went down like a damp squid. Worse was yet to come as Qasim launched into his Urdu song Yadein (good song, bad performance and the guitar was out of tune) and just when one thought it could not get even worse, Qasim broke into a number by the most unrocking rocker of them all, Richard Marx. While Qasim sang it note perfect and amazingly well, the crowd response to song was best summed up by an SMS an irritated rocker SMS-ed across during the performance: an incredulous ‘Oh Please…’

 

After Entity, Paradigm came on and delivered in spades. In fact this band has been one of the most pleasant revelations of the year in the way they have grown in following and stature. While they stated off weakly due to bad sound engineering which made the vocals sound too muffled, by the time they did Creed’s With Arms Wide Open – the highlight of the night - they were brilliant.  They even played an original which got tremendous response. Paradigm remains a band to watch.

 

As ever, the headbangers i.e. most of the people present, had come to see Seth. Seth came on last and lived up to the anticipation by delivering a pile-driving version initial few songs. However, they thereafter struggled to match that high-mark. Their own original fell down limp. Others rocked stutteringly. Matters could not have been helped by the fact that Eddie the vocalist was reading lyrics off of pieces of paper. With Seth’s uneven performance the Rock Festival that did not much rock, ended.

 

Overall, it seems that the main problem that the bands faced was with the change in venue. Instead of the regular indoors Alhamra venue where most of these bands are at home and dominate, the hugeness of the open air theatre dominated the bands. The Gulls management ambitiously held this concert at the Alhamra Open Air Amphitheatre: A worthy ambition, but all bands struggled to fill the venue not only with bodies but also with their performance. It was perhaps only Paradigm with their epic covers who managed to match the hugeness of the venue by playing with a huge sound. Even Seth seemed to lose their normal intensity outdoors.

 

Moreover, it was good to notice that bands are now becoming politically aware, if not politically active. It is about time too as most of the bands play several cover songs which are intensely political but the bands mostly seem clueless to this fact. Various people had various things to say about September 11, USA and the notion of freedom generally. Some comments were dumb, others not. But in the very least, it seems that the points of view are not coming out and the underground is slowly but surely getting a voice.

 

In the last, one must appreciate the Gulls organization for their continual support provided for the Lahore music underground. Their organizational muscle is essential to keeping the underground music scene happening and Ahmad Ali Butt, who fronts these worthy collection of people, must particularly be appreciated. He is tireless and the heart of the underground.

 

Overall, an interesting – albeit muted - time was had at the Rock Festival. The music seemed to sag a bit of times but all of that was more than made up with gossip about behind-the-scenes band intrigue, speculation of imminent split-ups and a fair dose of awareness and general involvement.

 

By Mohammad A. Qayyum