Professionals, amateurs perform side by side

Open-mic night includes rap, sitar, acoustic guitar and Sufi music performances and poetry and prose recitation

LAHORE: An open-mic night including rap, sitar, acoustic guitar and Sufi music performances and poetry and prose recitation was organised on Thursday at Nando’s restaurant on MM Alam Road.

“It is inspired by the T-12 open-mic sessions held regularly in Karachi. Open-mic nights provide a platform to amateur artistes to perform on a live stage,” Rifah Qadri, one of the organisers, told The Express Tribune.

She said she decided to organise the event after encouragement from Taimur Rahman, the Laal lead singer, during one of their conversations about cultural scene of the city.

Origami, an entertainment organisation dedicated to promotion of culture of which Qadri is a member, made a Facebook page about the event. “After getting a positive feedback,” Qadri said, “we decided to go ahead with the event this Thursday.”

She said that she planned to organise open-mic nights more regularly. “We need more activities for the youth and open-mic nights can provide them with an excellent opportunity to express themselves,” she said.

Rahman, who remained busy throughout the event interacting with the amateur performers, said, “Open-mic nights should not be limited to music only. They promote culture and should include poetry recitations and theatre as well.”

“This is fun. There’ll be something interesting to do in Lahore now,” an audience member, shaking her head to the sound of music, said.

Performances started at 9:30 pm with Ammar Kashmiri singing a cover of Sajjad Ali’s classic “Bolo, bolo.” He was followed by amateur artistes trying their hands on famous western rock songs. A former Lahore American School graduate, Bobby D, performed stand-up comedy. Another amateur artiste performed a rap song.

The highlight of the night was romantic Urdu songs rendered by Haroon. There were some guitar distortions yet he managed to keep the audience attentive.

He was followed by another amateur singer who sang Indian and Pakistani songs to emphasise how relevant the genre still was. He also performed a couple of songs from Indian movies including Hum apke hain kaun.

The crowd became excited as Rahman and Sarah Waqar took to the stage.

They performed an improvised rendition of U2’s with or without you. When they were done, a member from the audience started shouting, “I want to see you dance,” referring to Rahman’s dance in the video of his latest solo performance. Rahman responded by singing and dancing to Baba Farid’s sufi versus.

After Rahman, Co-ven took to the stage and performed indie rock/folk songs including some of their lead hits.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2010.