The Hindu : Karnataka News : A new trend in Indipop

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 08, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

A new trend in Indipop

Staff Reporter

Tour aimed at popularising the genre through live concerts

From across the border: The Pakistani band, Strings, performing at Speedzone in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: Murali Kumar K.

BANGALORE: Are Rabbi Shergill, The Bombay Vikings, Strings and Shibani Kashyap setting a new trend in the Indipop scene with live concerts? Certainly concerts with film songs evoke good response.

But an Indipop concert with musicians from different groups playing on the same platform is happening for the first time.

The four artistes are finishing the first leg of the McDowell Listen India Tour that will cover eight cities — Ludhiana, Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai — in an event put together by Brilliant Entertainment Network. The artistes performed here at the Speedzone on Tuesday as part of the tour.

Earlier, Raman Raheja, Director, Brilliant Entertainment Network, told presspersons that the concert industry in the West, particularly in the U.S., is worth $ 2.5 billion a year.

Common platform

He said: "The resources and talent are as much here as there and the potential to convert that into the live concert business could be higher than in the U.S. This concert is part of that effort to bring to the forefront talents from different countries on one platform. This is the first time something like this is happening in India."

Second leg

McDowell will hold the second leg of the Listen India Tour in August and September.

It has also drawn up a plan to organise Listen Pakistan, Listen Middle-Eastern Tours, and a Live World Ghazal Concert.

"The idea is to convert Listen into a brand for a particular kind of music, for a parallel music industry in the form of the live concerts in all parts of the world," he said. Rabbi Shergill was happy to support such a venture. "It is nice to have musicians of different groups performing together on one platform. And it is good to be performing live." Bilal Maqsood and Faizal Kapadia of Strings, Pakistan, are also happy to fit into this.

"The younger generation, much like ours, listens to a lot of pop-rock. That vibrancy allows for different musicians to perform together." The aim is to build an audience for the Indipop genre.

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