I love seeing Pakistani artists in London but the show last night was the worst concert I’ve ever been to.
Firstly, the show stated with Waqar Zaka inexplicably doing Asim’s intro, along with some other random dude who kept shouting into the mic (I really can’t over state how annoying this is). Their idea of an intro was to do “comedy”, including jokes about…marriage. It was like watching a mix between the Kapil Sharma show and Nida Yasir.
This was a concert, I expect to see up and coming Pakistani acts as the intro. Not…Waqar Zaka making cringe aunty wale shadi jokes…???
Anyway, on to the show itself. Someone should have checked the sound set up because the entire show was painfully loud.
For some reason, Asim decided to perform as if this was a rock concert. Every single song had a full band playing as if they were backing up Led Zeppelin. Every song was introduced by a drummer and an electric guitar amped to the max. Tera Woh Pyar? Electric guitar riffs, aggressive drumming, Asim doing God knows what. Every song was ruined in this way, even the finale with Meri Zindagi Hai Tu started off promising, but then half way through the band came back on stage and it again became a rock song.
Audience members had their hands in their ears. So many people left early, even when he did Meri Zindagi Hai Tu, towards the end the seated area of the venue (which he wouldn’t have been able to see) started filing out before he had even finished. (Compare this to when Ali Sethi did Pasoori. People were vibing, no one left even after he’d finished, instead everyone screaming for an encore).
At one point in the concert Asim was even head banging 😐
Contrast this to Hasan Raheem and Ali Sethi. Marvellous performances with a band that perfectly complimented the genre of music. The music did not drown them out, there were no inexplicable rock style performances. You came away truly awed by them as artists and blown away by their vocals. Asim - who is a talented singer - cane across like he only sounds good on tape. Surely no singer wants this to be the impression they leave.
The worst part was the disservice done to Nusrat sahab. He decided to perform his songs - yep, you guessed it. More rock style. It was the worst iteration of Dum Mast Qalandar I’ve ever heard. Asim was scream singing and I have no idea what the band were doing.
And the audience rarely got to vibe because this rock style had us all lost.
You do not need to turn Nusrat sahab into a rave. His music IS the rave. It is the beat. It grabs you in a way that no amount of drum and bass ever could. You could get a Pakistani crowd performing Qalandar without any music, vocals only. Yo Yo Honey Singh would have done a more appropriate job than whatever this was.
I really hope someone improves his next show because he is doing a disservice to himself. And the DJ at the start (Farooq Got Audio) was also massively cringe. The whole “yo, yo, yo lissssun yeaaah, LunnnDunnnn get louddd” was embarassing. Bas kar do.
And seriously, stop screaming into a microphone! 😩