Amir Zaki revives ‘Come Alive’ concert

Stagewright productions,United Pakistan hosted a concert as a launch for the former, to raise funds for flood relief.

KARACHI: Stagewright productions in collaboration with United Pakistan held a concert ‘It’s Time To Come Alive” at the Pakistan American Culture Centre (PACC) as a launch for the former and to raise funds for flood relief on Tuesday.

Before the concert started there was a red carpet so that the bands and musicians could be interviewed and photographed. Naturally, the cameras attracted a crowd, which was surprisingly small given the stellar line-up from Zoe Viccajji to Amir Zaki. For a while, though it seemed as if most of the audience was just the musicians themselves.

Stand-up act Sami Shah was there to open the show with references to soo-soo diapers and downed internet connections that kill ‘extra-curricular’ fun. For him, it was a good opportunity because “comedy can be done anywhere.” Shah had just put on a similar performance at the Sound of Hope concert that took place at the Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture a few weeks back.

Happily, the concert was held in the open-air courtyard. The mood was fairly subdued in the balmy air as the small audience milled around. The weather was quite pleasant, which made standing quite bearable as there were only 60 chairs to go around.

An additional feature to the event was the upcoming television icon Mathira, who recently hosted the Lux Style Awards. She had set up a stall to sell T-shirts of herself along with signed posters.

It was refreshing that the show started on time even though the venue was not packed at all. In fact, when the music started there were probably only a little over seventy people in the audience. It is worth mentioning, however, that a large part of the reason for the low attendance could be the fact that the event was originally supposed to take place on November 6. However, since that was Saturday, the day for Dr Imran Farooq’s funeral, the city had shut down. There is merit in a small crowd simply because there is room to breathe and there are fewer nasty characters around.

Sami Shah opened the event with his stand-up comedy routine. Even he made joke that there weren’t too many people, saying, “I’m performing to an empty stage.” The usually funny comedian did not receive the response that perhaps he was expecting. This might have been because he was repeating some jokes, or because he resorted to political jokes, which the rock music audience did not seem particularly interested in. In fact, the few claps that Shah did manage to get were heard when he made jokes about Meera and Nirma. But then again, how hard is it to make Meera jokes?

Crowd aside, the organisers had a great line-up. Along with musicians such as Amir Zaki, ADP, Immu and Khalid Khan, there were also performances by bands Gravity and Blue Mango and alumni of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa).

The first band to hit the stage was Blue Mango that did a variety of covers of songs from Zombie by the Cranberries to Use Somebody by the Kings of Leon. Their lead vocalist definitely has brass in her voice and she managed the difficult nasally notes in Zombie quite well.

By the time ADP came up, there must have been more than 200 people in the crowd. Their chemistry on stage was evident with their tight yet comfortable performance, which the crowd responded to well. Their song ‘Sultanat’ is a popular one and perhaps because they’ve performed it so many times, they have lost the nervous edge that new bands tend to unknowingly grapple with.

There were some performances by Napa alumni, including Haris Ali Khan and Uzair Shehzad. Khan, who played the sitar, is believed to be teaching the instrument in Malaysia these days after graduating from Napa.

It was when the much-awaited Amir Zaki came on stage that the crowd really got into the groove. The guitar pick-thin Zaki played some of his popular numbers, which haven’t been played for some time, including Keh Do, Jana and Mohhabbat Blues. It was great to hear him perform on Alamgir’s Albela Rahi and Nustrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Kinna Sona as well. The first because it was after a long time since he’s done that number and the second because it was new experience to hear him do an NFAK song.

Zaki was joined by Ehsan Bari on guitar and Hilary Furtado on saxophone.

According to Dr Kholod Shafi, one of the organisers of the event, 50 per cent of the proceeds are going to go to United Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2010.