This year alone, Pakistan’s showbiz industry is experiencing tremendous recognition on the international front. There is a continuous stream of shows – the Super Music Masti that took place in Manchester and London last May, Jawad Ahmad’s and Ali Zafar’s tours of the U.S. and Canada and separate shows in Denmark, Sweden and Norway earlier this summer, and the Mega Music Masti 2004 in 15 different cities of the U.S. and Canada organized by Liaqat Bajwa. The latter was a month-long tour which included artists such as Abrar-ul-Haq, Reema, Faakhir, Rabi Pirzada, and compere Farooq Hassan.
In the coming months, London is going to play host to Lollywood as it honours its top achievers at the annual award show in November. Then there’s the 35th International Film Festival in Goa, India where Lollywood producers have been invited to submit their work. This is not where it ends, people, for we have the Mega Mela 2004 and Sangeet Awards 2004 in London to look forward to as well. Better have those passports ready – seems like all the action is happening anywhere but in Pakistan.
Saturday, September 25th was one happening night at London’s Wembley Arena, as the Super Music Masti 2004 got underway. It was for the first time that the Independence Day celebrations took place indoors and on such big scale. Such events usually take place in parks etc, but this time around, the execution was grander than ever before. Promoter Shoaib Alam, who has established an unrivalled platform of high quality entertainment stage shows and music events had a bunch of stars fly down while Fifi Haroon of Prime TV produced the show. Namely and in order of appearance were Omar Sharif who hosted the show, Shehzad Roy, Rahim Shah, Humaira Arshad, Jawad Ahmad and Abrar-ul-Haq. Awards were given to Iffat Rahim, Shahida Minni and Beegee. Iffat came on stage for just a couple of announcements, for her little daughter backstage would get all upset each time mommy had to leave her. And now for the gossip oblique highlights: Meera and Resham were supposed to be the star performers but somehow did not turn up at the last minute. The others, however, did really well. Omar Sharif invited Salakhain star Ahmad Butt on stage and teased him and his wife Humaira Arshad about being newlyweds. Shalu and indepenDANCE performed some amazing dance numbers, including one on Ali Zafar’s Channo, which continues to be a hit with the U.K. audience. So in a way, Ali Z was there in spirit!
At one stage, the show was running later than it was supposed to and Jawad asked the organizers to cut short a hosting segment so that Abrar would get enough time to sing all his songs. Now that kind of camaraderie between artists is commendable. Abrar topped the evening with some new songs from his album Nacha mein oday naal. The track Pardesi struck a chord with the audience as it talks about people who leave their homeland to make bucks abroad… “dollaran bhulaiyan taanu tallian te behrian…..” The show was a huge success and now no one dare say that we Pakistanis are lagging behind