Pepsi Battle of the Bands, Season Two – Episode 07

This episode started off with celebrity performance Uzair Jaswal who sang ‘sajna’, and on concluding Call performed their iconic song ‘jilawatan’.

Final of Pepsi’s Battle of the Bands, Season two has two contestants namely Badnaam and Kashmir and both of these bands are really promising and have equal chances of winning the title.

Final round consisted of two rounds; 01) mash-up song and 02) original song.

Badnaam stated off the proceeding and performed ‘Ishqnaama’ which was a mashup of their original song ‘ishq mei teray + halka halka suroor by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan + teray ishq nachaya by Adida Parveen and haq ali mola ali also by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and wow what an explosive performance it was. Their mash-up started off very splendidly. Vocals were very melodious and were full of feelings and emotions that comes with the original ones. They really had put their heart and soul into this mash-up. Felt excellent.

Kashmir’s mash-up ‘ankahi’ consisted of two very popular songs ‘adat by Atif Aslam + aeitbaar by Vital Signs’. Although vocals on both song were lacking to come near the original ones but had their own style and music arrangement and compositions were both of top level.

Second round started by Badnaam’s original song ‘kalyaan Ishq’ which had all the elements of Badnaam’s style. It had powerful vocals, excellent music arrangements and composition too.

Kashmir sang their original ‘kaaghaz ka jahaaz’, excellent composition, nice and soft with nothing very hard to it but still very amazing to listen too, groovy bass lines with equally soothing vocals by bilal. All this coupled with excellent live performance, almost flawless. Yes another song which forced the judges to give them a standing ovation and a hug from Atif Aslam. WOW.

So finally with their song ‘kaaghaz ka jahaaz’, it seems as Kashmir has done it already. Now it’s for the audience to vote and decide, but I personally think that Kashmir should win this battle which will be like a repeat result, as during the last Battle of the Bands 2002, where final was between Aaroh who were more on the mellow side with softer and melodious type of music against Entity Paradigm’s power packed performance.

My vote goes to Kashmir but I have gut feeling that most of the Pakistani audiences will vote for Badnaam for their sufi type of music, which seems missing since Ali Azmat left Junoon.

Pepsi Battle of the Bands, Season Two – Episode 06

Episode 06 of Pepsi Battle of the Bands, season two knock out round can also be referred as semi-final of this competition with only top three banding remaining now.

This episode started off with celebrity performance from Asrar which was very powerful, energetic and explosive and was the real highlight of episode.

Moving back to contestants, Roots were first to perform and they decided opted for traditional folk song ‘peera ho’, which was also sung by Khalid Anum during late 90’s. Voice of Rutaba Yaqub didn’t suit the music style of this song. Roots nearly destroyed the peera ho and tried best to kill the essence of it. Music produced also wasn’t very firey. After this performance Roots should walk out on their own rather than waiting for judges to ask them to leave.

Second to hit the stage was Kashmir, who sang ‘mehdah ishq vi toon by Pathanay Khan’. Song started soft and mellow and vocalist brought it up very nicely and was full of soul. Kashmir has been my favourite song from the beginning till this knockout stage.

Badnaam performed ‘bismillah karraan by Nadeem Abbas’, perfect start with excellent and perfect vocals and equally excellent support by other band members. Probably first flawless performance of season two of Pepsi Top of the Pops. Can’t say more on it. Even though not on my favourite list but this band seems like a potential winner.

After three performances Badnaam was declared to be safe and remaining two bands Kashmir and Roots were declared to be in the danger and were to fight again for only one remaining spot in the final.

Roots came back very strongly and they performed their original song ‘pagal sa, ye dil’ which was their first near perfect performance. Everything seemed to worked for them for this song, their vocals (with a bit of Shania Twain), composition, music arrangements felt perfect.

Kashmir also came back very strongly with their original song ‘soch’, started soft and mellow as its turning out to the style of Kashmir, Bilal has created own style of singing and along-with Vais Khan who happens to Fawad Khan’s favourite and drummer Shane J.Anthoney will do wonders on stage.

Finally judges thought that that Roots should leave and Kashmir should stay on, felt like a decent decision as Roots performed in-consistently whereas Kashmir and Badnaam were consistent throughout.

Now eagerly waiting for the final between Badnaam and Kashmir.