Bringing it home

cover story

As Coke Studio takes its live show to Dubai, Instep asks industry insiders about the issues associated with live events in Pakistan and what can be done to have bigger, better concerts here.

Coke Studio is going live! The country’s biggest music platform is taking its magic from television to stage for an evening filled with song and dance.

It’ll be huge! It’ll be amazing! It’ll be ground-breaking!

It’ll be ... in Dubai.

That sound you just heard … that was our enthusiasm collapsing in on itself to form a giant black hole of disappointment.

Coke Studio Pakistan! Live! In the U.A.E.?!

So, what exactly is going on? Here’s a quick recap. 

Once upon a time – back in the good old days of yore when corona was just that luminescent ring around the Moon and Donald Trump was just that guy from The Apprentice – one Rohail Hayat took the idea of a concert-like platform from Brazil and turned it into the most successful music show in the history of Pakistani television. It was an audience-pleasing, career-making hit from the get-go, combining traditional and classical music with contemporary sounds to create irresistible fusions, with Rohail himself spearheading the production.

Several seasons, and a couple of personnel shuffles, later, the long-running series ended up in the very capable hands of Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, a.k.a Xulfi, who breathed new life into the by-then tiring franchise. The result was stellar. From the stratospheric success of Ali Sethi and Shae Gill’s ‘Pasoori’ to the infectious charm of Kaifi Khalil, Eva B, and Abdul Wahab Bugti’s ‘Kana Yaari’, the fourteenth season offered plenty of bops and earned well-deserved global attention.

Then came the announcement of a live gig, the first show of its kind, which, unlike those Coke Fests that insisted on putting food and music together, would focus solely on the performances. 

Recruited for the show are the likes of Faisal Kapadia, Hasan Raheem, Karakoram, Young Stunners, and Justin Bibis, as well as the aforementioned Ali Sethi and Shae Gill, stars of the latest season who will perform their hits at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai later this month. Spectators will also have the chance to witness the moves of Norwegian hip-hop dance group Quick Style. And we can only assume that a handful of surprises are also in store.

Instead of debuting the event in Pakistan though, Xulfi and his team have opted to go straight to Dubai. So, yeah dude, what gives?

“The Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai is an arena for global events,” the producer tells Instep. “We see Coke Studio as a language we speak to the world, the language of art from our part of the world, from Pakistan. Also, Coke Studio 14 has had a heart-warming global response. So it’s crucial that part of our focus should always include an approach that’s transcending boundaries.”

All fair points, plus you can’t fault him for reaching for the stars. He clearly aims to put on a show of international calibre, and knowing Xulfi, it’s safe to assume he’s crafting something special. “A representation of Pakistan with so many of our artists performing together hasn’t happened on this scale before,” he says. “Think of it as a medium for aspiring musicians from Pakistan to express and perform live in front of the world.”

When Bryan Adams came to town

While it would have been nice to have the Coke Studio artists serenade their local fans, we must concede that it is still all kinds of cool that the show will be abroad and we finally have a bona fide musical export that excites the world. Plus it’s fairly obvious that putting together a massive event in Pakistan comes with many challenges. Just ask Shehzad Roy. The singer – who has not only spent nearly three decades in the music industry but has also made an impact with his philanthropic work – was the driving force behind what remains one of the most memorable concerts in the country’s history: the performance by Canadian musician Bryan Adams (who happens to be Shehzad’s friend; you have our permission to be impressed) in 2006 at Karachi’s Arabian Sea Country Club.

Shehzad remembers the Rock for a Cause gig with fondness. “It was an amazing experience,” he enthuses. “We’ve all grown up listening to the music of Bryan Adams. Singing ‘Summer of ‘69’ and ‘Let’s Make a Night to Remember’ with him – we sang those songs together – was also a terrific experience.”

The event served as a fundraiser for Shehzad’s Zindagi Trust and to aid the victims of the devastating earthquake that had hit the country a few months prior. And although the ‘Saali’ singer and his team pulled off the concert without a hitch, putting together the show was easier said than done. 

“Organizing anything at this scale is very difficult,” he says, citing everything from security concerns to technical issues. But the main problem his team ran into was the lack of a proper venue. “We couldn’t figure out what the venue should be,” he says. They needed a space that could offer a proper concert environment, plus handle everything from ticketing to the technical elements. The right place was hard to find. “We had to set up a whole infrastructure at the eventual venue. So that was a huge issue. There is no infrastructure here for events like that. Plus there are things like security and other considerations. There are venues available in other parts of the world – you go and everything is arranged. But I think venue was the biggest issue for us, because we don’t have places where we can arrange big concerts with the required equipment and all things necessary.”

Local fans of international artists would have hoped that the Canadian singer’s show would be the first of many of its kind, but that was not to be. “[After the Bryan Adams gig], several international artists [expressed interest],” Shehzad reveals. “In fact, I did a show – a fundraiser for our organization – with Guns N’ Roses but in L.A. because it was difficult to do it here and there were multiple other reasons as well. There are several artists I have met that were all willing [to perform here], but this isn’t my job plus it’s very difficult to arrange.”

So what makes it so challenging to arrange a show in Pakistan? “I feel like there’s an issue of uneven growth [here],” Shehzad answers. “You have one of the top hospitals, top buildings in Karachi, and there’s an open gutter nearby and the garbage isn’t being removed. Just like that, when you arrange anything, some things are very organized, while others very disorganized. Especially in concerts, you have things like … the kind of lights and sound system they expect, they then have to bring it themselves. And arranging international concerts is a huge issue.”

The way forward, he thinks, lies in creating a concert culture in the country. “It’s just like movies,” he says. “If your cinemas are being closed, then you won’t get movies. Just like that, if a significant number of concerts aren’t being held, then the system won’t be established. And then doing big concerts all of a sudden will be very difficult.”

Music festivals of the mad decent variety

The other major event that came our way was the Mad Decent Block Party in Islamabad in 2018, an event that was labelled as Pakistan’s first international music festival, and saw the likes of Diplo and Major Lazer Soundsystem performing alongside local artists like Adil Omar and Talal Qureshi.

“When my company, Black Box Sounds, invited Diplo and Major Lazer, two major EDM acts to Pakistan for Mad Decent Block Party, Pakistan was not considered a possible performance destination by any international act,” explains Irshad Ali Khan, the co-founder of the aforementioned company that organized the event. “It took a lot of courage and nerve for us to take on something like this and I am happy that we were able to pull it off successfully.

“There were many challenges, including the perceptions of security in the country, which made it very difficult to convince an international act to visit Pakistan,” he states, expressing gratitude to the artists for committing to visit at a time when the Western media was only running negative stories about the region. “Other challenges from within Pakistan included arranging visas for the artists, scouting for a large enough and secure enough venue, ensuring the right audience, artist insurance, ticket control, security, etcetera. As you know Pakistan did not have the right infrastructure and systems to facilitate such an initiative back then and still there is a lot that needs to be done to make it easier.” 

Irshad also laments the “dearth of good, skilled organizers” and their impact on the overall image. “What we do with a dozen good events gets ruined by one untoward incident at a badly managed event,” he says

Despite everything though, Irshad and his team found the experience very rewarding and cherished the opportunity to create a market for EDM in the country while showcasing Pakistan as a progressive and inclusive society. “I think that tour actually put Pakistan on the map of performance destinations for international acts for the first time. Diplo rightly called it DJ Diplomacy, as with international news outlets such as CNN and BBC covering it, it brought a lot of positive light to Pakistan’s cultural resilience in some of the darkest days for the nation.”

To make bigger events possible, Irshad thinks that we all need to work together. “Make sure that all players involved in the game from artists to organizers to administration and relevant government departments and most importantly the audiences understand that it is important to keep this positive trend of successful events going if we want to bring in more mainstream and well-known artists to Pakistan. We definitely don’t want to be missing out on our place on the global stage. All we need to make this happen is to keep at it, keep trying to do bigger and better events, and never compromise on the essentials that make a good safe entertaining event for all.”

Krewel intentions

As challenging as it may be to arrange massive shows here, music fans have no reason to despair, for there is a lot more on the horizon. Despite any issues, several local platforms – from Lahore Music Meet to Salt Arts – are continuing to put on enjoyable shows. Plus we will see more international acts here as well, like EDM duo Krewella who are all set to tour Pakistan in January next year.

And yes you guy, put down those pitchforks and take a chill pill – Coke Studio Live WILL come to Pakistan. Eventually.

“This is a beginning,” Xulfi says with reference to the show in Dubai. “The vision is that CS Live, at this scale, frequently happens in Pakistan. Not just that, in fact the idea is that the concert space can evolve into an experiential space for the audience. It’s important we do it to ensure the love and interest for a live music experience never wanes.”

And just like that, from the ashes of our disappointment rises the phoenix of hope! All hail the gods of music! Now if someone could help us figure out how many kidneys we’ll need to sell to afford all those darn tickets, that would be a big help, thanks a bunch!

- By Sameen Amer

Instep, The News on Sunday - 9th October, 2022 *