Kashmir album launch draws huge crowd

KARACHI: Only a handful of things happen on time in Karachi. Movies, theatre plays and well everything that ends up going south. Likewise, Kashmir’s album launch was not an event that saw punctuality as a virtue, in fact if anything it started an hour later . But perhaps that also adds to the anticipation and the overall package that you’re putting up for purchase. As minutes turned to hours, and the doodh patti vendor ran out of tea, the Arts Council open air auditorium was more than half full.

On the venue, musicians socialised, thanking each other with a signature line these days, “Finally someone is putting out an album.” They caught up with the hope of a non-corporate, parallel original music industry finally picking up as they honoured a Pepsi-promoted band with their presence. However, one thing that brought all of them on the same page was that the band’s new song and video, Dhoop looked and felt kickass; as much as the screen projection sucked all the juice out of the visual quality. The video was directed by Umar Anwer, who was thanked multiple times in lead vocalist Bilal Ali’s speech on stage.

The master of the ceremony Anushay Abbasi started the evening by telling the audience that she was nervous, but her anxiety can be equated to nothing as compared to the feelings of the band members of Kashmir. The album titled Khwaab comprises of 11 songs recorded over the course of two years with three music videos already released.

Watch full video of Dhoop here:


The album launch also brought forward a revelation, one that many wouldn’t be able to notice right now, but sooner or later, will. The concert audience in Pakistan is changing, for good or for worse is still debatable, but they are not interested in the usual head-banging, eardrum-thrashing sound which was considered a norm. Kashmir’s listeners, who are majorly ‘young and restless’ teenagers and sometimes behind ‘that’ age but not very far away, were happy to sing along, stand up on request and dance together, and at times hum too.



This goes to show that critics who believe Kashmir is less-concert and more of a studio band need to readjust their weighing scales.

If victories are to be counted, the band’s ability to gather such a supportive crowd for something like an album launch gives them one point. The next thing they should be admired for is sticking to a genre and experimenting within the domain of their style of play. With time, the band promises to become more mature. Then, they might delve into something completely out of their reach for now. But mastering what they do better than others seems to be their first priority.

Backstory

Kashmir’s story is not incomplete without mentioning their struggle before they landed onto the scene during Pepsi Battle of the Bands season 2. Playing at concerts featuring only underground bands and also at events where nearly everyone would wait for the main act to arrive, Kashmir has had its fair share of struggles.

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