Umeed-e-Sehar
16th March’09
The day thousands of people were expected to storm the Federal Capital City in order to lodge protests in front of the Presidency to pave way for the Restoration of the deposed Judges. People had already seen chaos in the city of Lahore when the PML-N started it’s journey and in the early hours, we saw our Prime Minister address the nation. He told the nation that the orders for the restoration of the judges had been sent, the anti-protest Section-144 was taken back and that the disqualification of the Sharif brothers would be formally sent into an appeal by the Government itself.
One could see thousands of people out on the streets rejoicing their victory. The lawyers movement that started two years ago had transformed into the movement of the people and one could easily tell how frustrated the nation was the past two years. The power of the people paid off.
17th’March’09
In order to celebrate the restoration of the judiciary, Geo Television network took the initiative and organized an ‘open for public” concert by “Laal”. (A band that has been in the limelight mainly due to them being workers of the movement against the Governments wrong doings and the fact that their music is based on the revolutionary writings of Habib Jalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz which are applicable even today).
The proceedings of the concert finally started at 10 when Hamid “Capital talk” Mir introduced the band and welcomed the audience which mainly constituted people from all ages and walks of life. Aunties, Kids, Uncles, young people with flags etc. They started with the title track of their album “umeed-e-sehar”. Brilliantly executed, absolute class. The notes ringing on the guitars, the dholak and drum beat at the back and the flute man airing away on his flute. The song was immaculate. The vocalist delivered it perfectly and extended the song, asking the crowd to participate which they did. Umeed-e-Sehar is the 2nd single by them which is on air these days on various music channels. The video itself is very touching and does justice to the song but I could see people smile, rejoice, even shed tears when he sang ” umeed-e-sehar ke baat sunno”.
Next they did the Habib Jalib classic “Musheer”.. Meinay us say yeh kaahaaaaa yeh do dus karoorrr hein, jehal ka nechorrr hein. People shouted “Rehman Malik” out loud and the vocalist carried on their chants by saying ” this is what Rehman Malik tells Zardari behind closed doors”… It was a lovely number with the Guitar player, Taimoor messing around with the voice box and catching the attention of the audience.
The last song that I heard, was the song penned down by Aitzaz Ahsan which became the anthem of the Lawyers movement called “Kal aaj aur kal”… Jeet humara mustakbil hei :)
Very well rounded performance, extremely neat aura and rejoice all around. Laal, gel together as a band and I suppose it was their first performance in Islamabad, and quite a memorable one it will turn out to be..
Umeed-e-Sehar ke baat sunno =)
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!
