I went to the show and it was a disappointment, tho everyone had fun when Abrar finally came on stage.
First of all, the show started about 2 hours late at 9 PM !!!!! I just cant believe why our people always come fashionably late! Discipline hai hi nahin aur time ki koi parwah hi nahin! and when they are told that we need to end the show cos its 11PM, everyone starts booing!! I dunno who to blame, the artists themselves, the organizers or the fans like me.
Hosted by Farooq Hassan and he had some cool latifay for us.
First to come on stage was Naghmana Jaffrey and right away trouble started cos she was lipsyncing and the CD started to skip. It was really embarassing for her. They switched the song and it started to skip again.
She had to appologize and leave the stage for the technical staff to sort it out. It took about 10 minutes:p. She came back and sang "Maghroor Leila" and 3 other songs.
Next up was Haroon. I liked his stage performance cos unlike Naghmana, he seemed to be in control of things and even danced around the stage. He started with his hit song "Pyareya". And sang others like "Mehbooba" "Chan Vergay" "Mehndi" and some of his old numbers from the days of Awaz like "Jadoo ka chiragh" and "Mein na manoon haar".
Finally, the man of the hour came- The one everyone went to see. Abrar
started with "Rang Rang" and then "Kuryan Lahore Diyan" and sang others like "Jat" and crowd favorites like "Preeto", "Assan jana mall-o-mall" and ended it with "Nach Punjaban".
The house was packed and the crowd of almost 4000 was up on their feet every minute of Abrar's performance (including me ofcourse :D)
But the crowd felt a lil cheated cos the show was only 2 hours long and Abrar came at the very last and performed for maybe 40 minutes total.
Crowd wanted more and Abrar had to be appologetic and promised that next time in LA, the show will be better organised and rehearsed.
My impression of Abrar- very humble and down to earth guy. He was dressed modestly as well.
Oh and there was no Reema, Tafu or Roop. And one of the Sound Engineers and his sidekick couldnt make it. Their flight was still stuck in Canada !! Thats why we had the technical difficulties in the beginning according to the host! :p
Next, these guys are flying to Oakland and will perform there Sunday the 10th. I hope the stage performance is better and lots of fans show up.
Then Abrar will fly back to LA and have a fund-raiser at a local hotel here and he is also invited to a dinner at one of my acquaintance's house next week.
