EP’s mini-concert brings the house down
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-4-2003_pg7_23
By Khurrum Anis
KARACHI: The musical group Entity Paradigm (EP) visiting from Lahore performed at a small, newly-opened café on Sunday night in front of a hundred-plus capacity crowd.
Baber Sheikh’s Northern Alliance opened the evening for EP and, needless to say, theirs was a performance to remember. The boys are cult followers of dark metal and by the looks of it they are still keeping up to date with the latest trends, in death metal. Death metal is something which is very acute in these parts. We can be sure that the government will be the last juncture to openly hand out pamphlets encouraging music’s wild side, but all credit to Baber (who goes around by the name of “Goat”) and his four partners, Chaos Law, Reptile Child and Aag for lightening up the place that night.
Northern Alliance “started the funeral,” as Baber launched what sounded like a new age of rock in Pakistan. They played, shouted, screamed and tried to blow the roof of the house with their inspirational performance. Perfect was how people called it! People were so enamoured by their performance that someone reported one of the guests, who was obviously entranced by the sounds of sheer rock, deliberately slashed his veins. Not that it turned out to be a gory incident but Baber still requested on the mike for the metal fanatic, “to put an end to it at once.”
The most interesting aspect of dark metal is the freedom involved. When Baber sang a song, the guitars and drums virtually shattered the walls and mirrors while the Reptile Child, besides hanging onto his bloodied chest (which he had clawed with his own nails) drowned the walls with the wailing of his bass riffs. Northern Alliance performed a couple of more covers from Rage against the machine and Limp Bizkit, before packing the house for EP.
Ahmed Ali’s band of eight packed and rocked the full house for about two hours. It’s interesting what an impact sound has over music groups, performing live in concerts. Lead vocalist Fawad’s vocals and lead guitarist Xulfi’s riffs made up for Saturday night’s discrepancies when the band faced the wrath of the sound engineer. However, this night music remained alive with EP forming a nexus of great and perfect entertainment, all thanks to good sound. “Hamain Azmaa, Hamesha, Tu hai Kahan, and a number of Limp Bizkit and Tool covers showed why the group was on its way to becoming the next Guns‘n Roses of Asia.
EP added a bit of colour this night as both their drummers stepped up to do live versions of ex hits. Under Xulfi’s whistling guitar, first Waqar and then Salman performed Wonder World and Mera Pyar, respectively.
They danced, jumped, gave the complete definition of the word “performance” before ending he night with Hamein Azmaa. It was here that one felt to have discovered the missing blood in Pakistan’s aging music industry. “The missing piece of the puzzle,” murmured a bystanders.
EP’s performance ended thankfully early (by half past twelve) but left the audience eager for more.
