Appreciating Music

[ awards ]

The Hints

What started off with little teasers cleverly depicting the mysterious appearance of the letters TMA before they would vanish with the effect of a television screen turning itself off, turned into one of the most talked about events in the music industry— The Musik Awards.

The invitations were hand-delivered in a black velvet envelope-type thing that you had to open to reveal your invitation card. Plain black in colour, there were several sides to the invitation. One side had the venue and timings, another told you that the dress code was formal and the colours to be worn had to be black and white. At the end of it all was a little chair that folded out with a coloured dot. The text “we have saved a seat for you” was below the chair and the colour of the dot depicted the area you were seated in. overall the invitation was cheeky, but a welcome change from the plain card normally sent out. This also showed the attention to detail the TMA team was giving to everything related to the event.

The Ambience

Set in a location that will not be disclosed, those at the gate would effectively beep the invitation, registering your attendance, and then would let you in. An elaborate deep red carpet was laid out bordered by creatively put-together by little back-drops where some red-carpet interviews were being conducted and marble slabs with TMA slogans carved into them. The red carpet itself led to a waiting area before leading on to the main place where the TMAs were being held.

Under a large dark grey tent with a shimmering light grey canopy, the waiting area was complete with comfortable sofas, air conditioning, beautiful lights and bartenders serving drinks that seemed a brilliant combination of a pineapple margarita and lemonade. Television-familiar faces, both in the music and fashion world would arrive and chat before moving on to wherever they wanted to be seated.

Out of those who lingered on, there were some musicians who seemed to consider themselves as having star-power above the others and remained somewhat aloof, all the while checking the other attendees out. The most blatant example was of Strings, who consciously stood a little away from ‘the crowd’ —on the pretext of discussing their upcoming performance— and peered onto the rest through the shades that they were wearing indoors, at night.

The stage can be described in one word only: humongous. The backdrop was plain black and white with Motorolla (the main sponsor of the event) written on it. In a way, there being a single sponsor was a relief: one was not confronted with an array of advertisements, had there been more then one which gives a bad taste to any event. The single sponsor with the simple way in which it advertised itself: by blending into the environment by restricting its colours to black and white, and graphics to text only was actually commendable where corporate sponsorship is concerned.

The event started several hours late, which was expected, although it would be nice to see a local event start relatively on time. The various hosts of the evening were Aijaz Aslam and Sonia Khan, Hasan Shehryar Yasin and Meesha, and Faraz and Natasha, the latter two being popular VJs on The Musik.

The TMA team had done everything to ensure that nothing was left out. They mounted large plasma screens for the benefit of those who sat further away from the stage and so could easily view everything that happened. They coordinated to make sure that everyone who had to be there was seated before they started the event. What they did not do however, was pay attention to sound. The sound, during most of the event, was quite horrible.

The Performances

The show was opened by Ali Azmat crooning to Mein Challa with various models dressed in white prancing around him and the stage throughout the song. The overall choreography of this particular ‘item’ was oddly similar to last year’s New York Fashion Week, where models showed off designer outfits in the midst of singers performing on the cat-walk. Despite the similarity, the song was done nicely.

To this day, most of us are unaware as to whose outfits were being displayed, but what the hell; it was fun trying to figure out which model was wearing what. And of course, Ali’s performance was also good.

The TMAs overall consisted of live performances by Musicians, a brilliant little production depicting Faisal Qureshi and Mani’s humour, and awards being given out. Coming to the performances,

Aaroh performed a song off their new album, Raag Neela which had Farooq jumping around on the very large stage in a pair of very bright red pants. Some thought he had lost it, however, one assumes he wanted to be noticed. If that’s the case, then he was quite successful. His pants are also one of the most talked-about things since the TMAs.

Haroon Rashid performed a single off his new album, Jiya Jaey with an ensemble of heavily done up individuals who tried hard to look like they were having a good time. Some of them wore, what appeared to be dresses. Haroon performed well but he could really have done without the people who joined him.

Who can forget Annie and her thumkas, especially at the awards? Performing a remixed version of her song Mahiya, Annie arrived on stage in an ankle length black dress and showed us in person what she had been flashing us with in her music videos: her thumkas. And helping her with them were the stage dancers. One has to commend the Pakistani-Shakira on her guts to swish-swash the way she did, she beat the rest of the performers by a mile when it came to entertainment.

Performing their very popular Jhok Ranjhan, the Meekal Hasan Band —known for being finicky about the ‘sound’, and why not— managed to pull it off quite decently. Not one of their better performances, in terms of sound, but one of the best where performances at the TMA were concerned.

Even though this particular song managed to gain a lot of acclaim for its beautifully written lyrics and melody, the performance of Zinda Hoon by Strings was a bit of a letdown. maybe the fact that they are one of the best bands to every come out of Pakistani soil and that the song was the very popular Zinda Hoon, could have contributed to a rise in expectations where it’s performance was concerned. But they could have done much better. It failed to create the ‘wow’ effect that should have been; given it was Strings who was performing.

The person who easily stole the show with his surprise appearance and being backed by some of the best musicians in the country, the pioneer of pop-music, Alamgir came back with a bang. Pulling off one of the most energetic and vocally strong performances I have ever been a witness too, he had some die-hard fans jumping on their chairs and dancing to his songs. He sang, he danced, he jumped and fell and came back on his feet again, he was amazing through and through. He depicted boundless energy at four-o-clock in the morning when most people were ready to die of fatigue and lack-of-sleep. If anything, TMA really did nail ‘it’ by bringing Alamgir back. And we will forever be grateful to them for it.

The Jury

The Jury members were: Arshad Mahmud, Anwar Maqsood, Shehzad Hasan (Shahi), Nayyara Noor, Tariq Amin, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, and Asad-ul-Haq.

The Awards

Best Ballad: Yaad piya ki, Fariha Parvez

Best Album: Social Circus, Ali Azmat

Best Pop Song: Pyaar to hona he hai, Suroor

Best Bhangra Song: Saiyyan way, Shiraz Uppal

Best Rock Song: Na re na, Ali Azmat

Best Live Act (Artist): Sajjad Ali

Best Live Act (Band): Mekaal Hassan Band

Best Rising Star: Kaavish

Best Music Producer (Album): Ali Azmat for Social Circus

Best Lyricist: Sabir Zafar for Na re na

Best Guitarist: Shallum Xavier

Best Drummer: John Louis Pinto (Gumby)

Best Bassist: Sameer Ahmed

Best Keyboardist: Shuja Haider

Best Song (Viewer’s Choice): Mahiya, Annie

Best Video (Viewer’s Choice): Na re na, Saqib Malik

Most Wanted Male (Viewer’s Choice): Atif Aslam

Most Wanted Female (Viewer’s Choice): Annie

Most Wanted Band (Viewer’s Choice): Call

Best English Song (Viewer’s Choice): Leeway, Corduroy

Best Soundtrack (Viewer’s Choice): Dost – Faakhir

The Musik Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music: Arshad Mahmood

The Musik Award for Lifetime Achievement: Alamgir

Motorolla Musik Icon: Strings

At the end of it all…

Despite the little bloopers that occurred here and there (which were in any case, inevitable), The Musik Awards achieved what The IM Jazz Awards failed to: attaining a level of chic, sophistication and attention-to-detail, also known as professionalism in certain contexts.

The first ever awards to be audited, it’s a comforting to know there are awards out there where accountability is pertinent and where authenticity is stressed at. Lets hope TMA is able to establish a r

eputation that would further the validity of a TMA award.

One of the ways of judging an event is to see how it starts and ends. The TMA started by bringing on stage Pakistan’s symbolic rockstar, Ali Azmat and ended it by surprising everyone with the appearance of, as he is considered to be, the founder of the pop industry in Pakistan, Alamgir. The TMAs marked their way into Pakistan Pop History; let’s hope they can live up to the reputation they have established for themselves.

After-thought: comments on the awards

Meekal Hasan: A step in the right direction, I’d still like to see the awards focus more on the achievements of the musicians both behind the scenes and in the limelight. The music scene continues to be fashion obsessed and that is demoralising for many musicians who may not be considered cool and hip by the glitterati.

The nominations for the best drummer, guitarists etc are a welcome first step and need to be further extended so that the people who play on the hits and records of the country's stars are duly acknowledged and appreciated. Without Salman Albert there would be no Aadat and there would be no live performances if people like Pappu and Gumby were not recognised.

There also should have been a best singer and best woodwind category and there should have been best live sound engineer category too. Also some of the people nominated for the best drummer were not in any records and people like Salman and Fahad were looked over while they have been recording and playing live for ages.

There should also be a "talent deserving wider recognition" award. So that people can be aware of artistes who have major potential.

I also feel there should be a best journalist award. Just as the musicians are important so too are the people who cover and write about music.

Gumby:

Well organised and the show itself set a new standard for future performances in
Pakistan. From the shoot to the logistics, everything was well taken care off.

Imran Momina (Emu): I want to judge the judges.

You (the jury) give awards based on the work that an artiste has done that year or sometime near the year that is being judged. Sameer Ahmed, the bassist for the band Karavan who won the Best Bassist Award hasn't been in the country for the past three years. How could you give an award to someone who has not produced some concrete work in over three years? Let alone be in the same country?This means that the awards were given based on the credibility of the artiste rather then his or her recent work.

Compared to that, Khalid Khan, the bassist for Aaroh has done a lot of work in these past three years. He should have gotten the award. But he didn't.

This clearly shows that the motive behind the awards that were given was more personal in nature. I didn't get an award because I didn't do any (commercial) work in these past few years.

Shallum got the award for best guitarist even though it has been more then three years since the last Fuzon album came out and he hasn't released any record as a solo artiste since then.

And what was this about Kaavish winning the Best Newcomer award? Nayyara Noor gave the award to her son (the lead singer in Kaavish). What has Kaavish done so far? Compared to that Abbas Ali Khan should have won the award.

My point is: these awards are meant to pamper people.

If Sameer Ahmed has been playing bass for 20 years, then I have been playing keyboards for 17 years. On that basis (experience) then the Best Guitarist Award should have been Aamir Zaki.

Note:
— this is the unedited version, the published version is titled "Claps and carps"
— written under the pseudo/pen-name Band Baji

First Published:
World Music Magazine
Sept/Oct 2006