Pepsi celebrates the New Year 2002

Pepsi’s ‘Rock the New Year’ concert held at the Army stadium Nafid Imran Ahmed From the beginning of this year’s music season Dhaka was not flooded with concerts like the previous years. But world famous soft drink brand Pepsi did not let that continue. On February 1 with one of the largest concert crowds Pepsi celebrated the New Year 2002 with performances by the front ranking musical icons of the country.

In Bangladesh, Pepsi has provided the much needed platform to reach music to its’ consumers, the youngsters. Not only in Dhaka, Pepsi has organised concerts in Rajshahi, Chittagong and many other cities of the country. With music, Pepsi concerts always have a noble cause, such as helping the cancer clubs and blood banks. This time Pepsi came up with something similar. This concert was held for the raise of a fund for establishing a free Friday clinic. Front ranking bands LRB, Nagarbaul, Shadhinota, female singer Mehreen and upcoming bands Vikings, Steeler, Cryptic Fate and Glad Tiders performed at the concert

Nagarbaul performing at the concert at Army Stadium
The concert was scheduled to start at 3:00p.m.and long before that the music loving people started to fill the Army Stadium premises. With a heavy metal number Cryptic Fate kicked off Pepsi’s New Year Fest. By then people were outside the ground and filling in the galleries in small numbers. Though new to many, Cryptic Fate started their journey into Dhaka’s music scene quite some time ago. They already have two albums released and have performed in many mini and big shows. They are quite famous for their heavy metal numbers. The heavy metal fans in the audience loved their performance. The audience cheered as they started playing Iron Maiden numbers. Cryptic Fate played the heavy metal numbers in a unique manner. As always it was amazing to see three young musicians play such good music.

Glad Tiders took over the stage. With some all-time favourite rock English numbers and some of their own Bengali composition such as ‘Psychotic Love Affair’ the band performed at the concert. Beginning in 1991 the band came a long way and partook in the Benson & Hedges Star Search 1999. Recently they have released an album and have distributed 3000 copies of it free. The reason behind this was that they wanted the audience to listen to their music and judge for themselves whether they preferred it or not. Once again the drummer Daiyan fascinated all with his superb drumming.
Last year’s Star Search winner Steeler was next. They started their performance with their own number ‘Dukkho’. Next they started performing English numbers.
One after another they performed Dire Strait’s ‘Saultan’s of Swing’, Brain Adam’s ‘Summer of 69′, Deep Purple’s ‘Black Night’ and ‘Highway Star’. One of their Bengali number ‘Ratri’ was next. The audience enjoyed their performance. With the number ‘Tobuo’ Steeler’s performance came to an end.

Solo female performer Mehreen took the stage next. ‘Anari’ was the song with which she started her performance. The crowd loved her performance and cheered. ‘Shanai’ was her next number and the crowd enjoyed this one even more. Famous Latin number ‘Lambada’ was next. Mehreen’s remarkable performance came to an end with the song ‘Dekha Hobe’.

The band that gained quite some popularity within a very short time, Vikings was next. They started their performance with their own number ‘Shomoy’. One after another they enthralled the crowd with their famous numbers such as ‘Din Joto’ and ‘Tumi Kotha Dao’. The last song that Vikings performed was ‘Jibiner Kolahol’ the number that earned them the Star Search 1999 title.

For the first time famous male singer Hasan’s new band Shadhinota performed live. The crowd greeted him and his new band as they walked on stage. At first Hasan sang some of his all time favorite numbers such as ‘Ato Koshto’, ‘Ekaki’, ‘Guru’ and ‘Bangladesh’. The crowd loved their performance. Then Shadhinota performed two numbers ‘Ekla Cholo Re’ and ‘Karbala’ from their debut album, which is due next Eid. With these two numbers Shadhinotas performance came to an end.

Long awaited Nagar Baul took the stage next. As the daylight swept away and the colourful lights flashed on the stage the Army Stadium took a new look. The crowd went crazy as James walked on stage. With a harsh voice James apologized to the audience for having a bad throat and then started their performance with his famous number ‘Dukhini Dukho Koro Na’. But as soon as he started the song it was clear that having a bad voice was not a problem at all because the audience sang along with him so loudly that James hardly needed to sing. One after another Nagar Baul performed their famous numbers such as ‘Bijli’, ‘Dushtu Cheler Dol’ and ‘Mira Bai’.

The crowd started singing and dancing and the whole army stadium wore a festive look. With the famous number ‘Jatra’ Nagar Baul concluded their performance.

The last but not the least LRB was next to perform. LRB’s Ayub Bacchu walked on stage and thanked the crowd for singing along with James as he had a troubled voice. Then the band enthralled the audience with non-stop performance of their all time favourite numbers such as, ‘Gotokal Rate’, ‘Mon Chaile’, ‘Ghum Bhanga Shohor’, ‘Rupali Guitar’, ‘Madhobi’ and ‘Tara Bhora Rate’.

The audience was moved to experience their superb performance. They sang and danced along with the band. The number ‘Baro Mas’ was performed next. The song with which the PEPSI ‘Rock the New Year’ came to an end was ‘Ural Dibo’.

Once again Pepsi proved that music is the best celebration and presented the audience an unforgettable evening.

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