Lights Out! puts chaos and hilarity onstage in Islamabad

Tughral Turab Ali
Islamabad

Hilarty

The theatrical scene in Islamabad has been heating up lately with many amateur productions being put up for consumption. Thus one walked into the Lahore Grammar School’s (Islamabad) presentation of Lights Out! at the National Art Gallery with a mild sense of anticipation.

What followed was more than a pleasant surprise.

The play, directed by the very talented Osman Khalid Butt, is based on Play on! by Rick Abbot. It revolves around a group of actors, directors and one fairly irritating and flamboyant authoress, trying to put together a performance of a play-within-a-play called Murder Most Foul. Act 1 of Lights Out! is all about a nightmare of a rehearsal for Murder Most Foul that leaves the director of the play exasperated and his rival director rubbing his hands in glee.

Atif Aslam

Annie

Truth be told, the one person we miss the most out of everyone who has gone AWOL in the Pakistani entertainment industry is Annie; “Annie Princess” as loads of people call her. She has to be one of the most charming women around at the moment, as even with a voice that probably only her best friend loves, you can’t really hate Annie. She is so sure of herself at all times, whether her music is, umm, not brilliant, or whether it is unabashedly talking about performing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ as the first song she ever sung in public, as we wonder how Celine would feel about her kitsch hit being butchered at an Abrar concert – Annie just doesn’t care and sort of surges ahead like the force of nature she is.

Music Think Tank

MUSIC THINK TANK 2009/2010 – INTERNATIONAL AWARDS & FESTIVAL

The cultural association Think Tank presents the annual international and independent musical meeting Music Think Tank 2009/2010 between artists, music industry, companies and professionals, spiritual & visionaries personalities, institutions and the public.

The Music Think Tank is an independent factory that brings on innovative ideas supporting social aims and intercultural experiences thanks also to EuroDesk.

A qualified jury of successful artists and music industry will grant more than 50 awards and 60 mentions for young creative minds, emerging and independent artists valued for their talent, originality and artistic depth.

Songwriters, bands, performers, dj/producers, lyricists and visual artists of every age and music genre can submit their proposal.

Artists have to send an online profile like MySpace with contents (mp3, gigs, biography, discography, photos, video, official website, etc) and fill out a form on the official website www.thethinktank.it

EP to be part of Coke Studio 3, tweets Fawad

EP Fawad

Twitter is now officially a little cooler, as far as Pakistani celebs who tweet go. Fawad Afzal Khan (@Fawadk007), frontman for the band Entity Paradigm (EP) joined Twitter a few months back but seemingly has only just now become more active on it. And the tweets he has been leaving for fans are nothing short of superbly exciting!

“Get ready.. Something big is coming up soon! Until then please keep waiting,” Fawad tweeted a while back, piquing the curiosity of fans. This message was followed up by “Okay… This news is only for my Tweeps. I wont post this on FB until later.. But EP will be featuring in the 3rd season of Coke Studios!”

The band has an official presence on Facebook as well, and the response they have from fans is simply tremendous – and a little surprising.

Strings

Strings duo Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood are currently going through the major cities of Pakistan as part of a concert tour. Having played a Valentine’s Day show for the Isloo crowd, Strings made their way to LUMS in Lahore on February 17, and sent an already keyed-up audience into absolute adrenaline-rushed mode.
While it is always fabulous to hear Strings sing – this particular performance was made even better by the fact that Bilal and Faisal sang a medley of pop songs by various Pakistani artists of yore.
If you love Strings, then just imagine them singing Nazia Hasan’s ‘Disco Dewane’ – and imagine how you would dance! And dance did the audience – one girl in particular, a student at LUMS, who was chosen by the band to come out of the audience and share stage space with them! The exhilarated girl could be seen saying, “Oh my god!” throughout her time on stage and this probably made the concert even more fun for the people there, to see one of their in the spotlight.
The medley had other musical gems as well: Reshma, Alamgir, Vital Signs, Junoon and Ali Azmat songs were part of the repertoire and had the crowd swaying, singing and dancing along.
Strings humbly admitted that these artists were the ones responsible for paving the way for future musical acts such as themselves and to see such humility from people so successful is always awe-inspiring; especially since Strings already paid homage to Pakistani greats in the ‘Titliyan’ video.
The night ended with the Jupiters’ ‘Yaaro Yehi Dosti Hai’ – classic Pakistani friendship anthem – which was the perfect song to play for an audience full of students.

Farhan Saeed’s Café Rock opening, rocked!

Jal Band

A while ago, Farhan Saeed Butt, vocalist for Jal, had promised us that his “survival plan” Café Rock, will be functional come February and Pakistani musicians “will have their representation in a unique way” at the café.

Café Rock officially opened on February 16, and Farhan was overwhelmed and grateful for all the wonderful support that was shown to him by the musicians in Lahore. “I just had to call them once,” he says, “and they were there.”

But Farhan already had a plan up his sleeve to make sure his musical brethren know how much he values them. He has toured around the world with the band quite a bit and noticed how in other countries, “people make their heroes”.

Jawaid Bashir

The lead vocalist of the Mekaal Hasan Band (MHB) seemed to take inspiration from the Spice Girl’s Geri Halliwell when he decided to quit his band a day after their second album’s (Saptak) official launch. What’s more is that he decided to break the news to the world — and to the band members whom he had not informed of his decision — by announcing it on a TV show on a local news network.

The singer’s departure from the band came as rather abrupt as only a day prior to the announcement he had performed with MHB on the launch of their second album, and till then everything between the singer and the band seemed fine.