Haroon Shahid – Ganderi it is

Haroon Shahid

“He looks just like Ali Noor’s younger version but sings just like Adam Levine from Maroon5”, said Mekaal Hasan, from the Mekaal Hasan Band (MHB) and owner/producer at Digital Fidelity Studios (DFS) in Lahore during my last trip there, “… and (therefore) we refer to him as Haroon5”. That is the introduction I got to Haroon Shahid, an upcoming musician/singer/songwriter from Lahore who seemed to be quite popular in both the underground and mainstream musician circuit.

For me it all started with Haroon over a music competition happening at the Peeru’s café in Lahore called “Rock Club”. The objective of Rock Club was to audition underground bands till on the final night, the judge and the audience would pick out one sure winner. It sound simple… but it wasn’t quite. The prize for the winning band was a budget in which they could either get their album recorded, their video shot or they could buy new equipment. For an upcoming band, to get the budget to do anything is a huge deal.

Haroon Shahid’s band, Simt, was in the top three. His own original song, Pyaar Di Ganderi (“I like to call it The Sugarcane of Love,” joked Haroon) was infectious, appealed to the naughty kid in all of us and, not surprisingly, was a hit with the audience.

What was perhaps most interesting to note was that the mainstream musician community seemed to show just as much of an interest in Rock Club as the underground artistes. Most of them could be seen attending the shows, and post-show discussions on the band’s music abilities would ensue. Being in Lahore at that time, I can vouch for the fact that I have never felt such an intense atmosphere around a competition. Everyone waited for the final result with baited breaths.

Haroon seemed nervous and yet fairly confident in his abilities as a musician. He was very clear about the kind of sound he wanted from their performances. According to a mutual acquaintance he worked really hard on his vocals and Haroon confessed to taking tips from MHB’s Jawaid Bashir on singing as well. Because I had not been there for the previous shows, the organizer had shown me a video of his performance, when Haroon found out during one of the post-show sessions, this is how our conversation went:

Haroon: so what did you think?
Madeeha: [is silent. Doesn’t know whether to blurt out her opinion or save for writing it later on. ]
Haroon: what? You didn’t like it?!
Madeeha: [is still silent.]
Haroon: How can you not like it?!
Madeeha: [is amused and silent… for the heck of it now.]
Haroon: you know what?! I DON’T CARE if you like it. I know it was good.

At this point, the organizer (who was a psychology major) laughed out and commented how she saw shock, denial and post-shock anger all in one minute! I had to leave the night before the show, but was told later on that Simt won the competition.

He later came to Karachi for several months because as a contestant of Pakistan Sangeet – his rocked-out performance of Noori’s Kuttay (Te Tho Utthay) both shocked and entertained the audience and remains to be a memorable performance from the show. During an open-mic gig at The Second Floor (T2F), after much persuasion on my part, he sang the live version of Pyaar Di Ganderi (along with Sunday Morning by Maroon5) which not only invited amused giggles from the audience, but had people humming Ganderi long after it was over. He is currently back in Lahore and in the studio, working on his debut album.

Source: Bandbaji | Madeeha Syed