‘Good Clean Fun’ puts Raahi on the music map

Band, featuring the likes of Gumby, Omran Shafique, rivets audience with first-ever live gig at T2F

KARACHI:

In a recent interview with the newly-formed band Raahi, drummer Louis J Pinto aka Gumby spoke about an artiste’s responsibility towards the audience. “It doesn’t matter if you’re performing in front of 20 people or 20,000 people, you have to perform with the same intensity,” he said. Staying true to this, Raahi performed their first-ever live gig at an event titled ‘Good Clean Fun’ at The Second Floor (T2F) on Friday. Although performing for nearly 100 people, the band put on a show that could rivet an even larger crowd.

The event, which was slated to start at 7:30pm, experienced a slight delay as people kept pouring in till the last minute. The band’s line-up boasts renowned names of the Pakistani music industry, including Mauj frontman Omran Shafique on guitar, Karavan bassist Sameer Ahmed and Sounds of Kolachi’s Ahsan Bari on vocals. A surprise addition to the band’s performance line-up was Wren on the violin.

The band opened the show with an original composition, Dil Ka Rahi, from their soon-to-be released debut album. Apart from playing original tracks from their album, the group paid a tribute to legends of the music industry, with covers of Vital Sign’s Tere Liye, Sajjad Ali’s Teri Yaad, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, and the Hariharan classic Tu Hi Re, which was featured in Mani Ratnam’s movie Bombay.



Although the band did a laudable job on Tere Liye, their rendition of the song Teri Yaad wasn’t at par with the original performed by Sajjad. The song was anchored by Omran’s guitar and Sameer’s bass, but posed as the only flaw in vocalist Ahsan’s performance. Violinist Wren assumed the role of vocalist for Hallelujah, which, for the most part, bore striking resemblance with the original track. It was only towards the end that the drums and violin upped the song’s tempo.

The highlight of the musical evening was the band’s original track Aasman Ki Ore, which had a Noori-like feel to it and was among the few songs that saw Gumby’s drumming skills come to the fore. Tarana, which is more popularly known as Tere Ishq Mein Jo Bhi Doob Gaya, was the most well-received song of the night.

“No rock concert in Pakistan is complete without Tere Ishq Mein. That was the best song of the night for me, as not only did we get to hear good vocals and guitar-strumming, but also Gumby’s drumming towards the end, which stole the show,” said Zubair, an audience member. People were hopeful that these concerts, albeit on a smaller scale, would revive the live performance scene within the country. “I hope performances like these are able to kickstart concerts in the country. It was nice to go to a concert after a long time and it would be great if bands like this can perform in front of bigger audiences in larger arenas,” commented another audience member. Raahi has already recorded their debut album and is set to release the videos of some of the songs from their upcoming album in the coming months.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th,  2015.

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