Pure Punjabi

An energetic crowd made Mika and Honey Singh’s night

You know aconcert is successful when all the roads leading up to the venue (in this case, Nasimi Beach at Atlantis) are jam-packed, and there are hoards of people outside the gates just dying to get in. The jostle to enter unfortunately took a long while, and we only managed to get in at about 11.15pm, realising the concert had started 10 minutes before. The first act was Honey Singh, who was a total powerhouse on stage - interacting with the audience, professing his love for Dubai, and cracking R-rated jokes so perverse they would make even the most seasoned dirty joke tellers blush.

There was a really relaxed atmosphere at the beach with many sipping on drinks and munching on snacks while sporting plastic LED glasses. And even though one would expect mostly a young ‘desi’ crowd, there were many who were well into their 40s, 50s and some 60s, as well as non- ‘desis’ who couldn’t resist the beats.

Honey Singh of course sang all his hits: Main Sharabi, High Heels, Brown Rang, and Angreji Beat to name a few, although he was found to be lip syncing in places. He performed his yet-to-be-released single I’m Your Superman as well. The audience didn’t seem to mind that too much since, as a performer, he was so good dancing around on stage and making the audience sing while he was being backed up by two male vocalists.

The audience was the most energetic I’ve seen so far with people dancing all over and I’m not talking just swaying, but pretend bhangra and hip hop steps. They may have not been the best, but the energy on display made up for it.

Television actress Karishma Tanna came up on stage briefly to introduce Mika’s act, who came in singing Subah Hone De, which is probably one of his most popular songs.

He had his sunnies on (anyone else understand the need for stars to wear sunglasses at midnight?), and got into the groove pretty quick singing a medley of his hits like Sajh Dajh Ke, Pungi and Dhinka Chika, to name a few.

Even though Mika was good, he is certainly more of a singer and definitely not a performer with his dead pan face. He took a break to wish his “brathar from anathar mathar” Honey Singh happy birthday, and gift him a diamond bracelet. They also sang Subah Hone Na De together, informing the audience that Singh had sung the rap bit of the song.

Getting back to his own numbers he sang Gabru, Desi Beats, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, and Ganpat, Hookah Bar, Saawan main lag gayi aag and Singh is Kinng, for example, while attempting to teach his fans how to do the bhangra.

He brought TV star Rannvijay, and singers Toshi and Rahul Vaidya on stage before continuing with his hits.

Even though officially his last song was Subah Hone Na De (yes, again, but the crowd cheered everytime he sang it!), he did sing a remix of the Indian national anthem, and we noticed many people rolling their eyes at that.

All in all a fun night, which seemed to have been attended by the entire ‘desi’ population of the country who were all seen looking very happy, and we even heard someone say the concert was full ‘paisa vasool.’

aarti@khaleejtimes.com