James headlines ‘School of Rock’, a concert for a noble cause

It was almost 11:30 pm on the clock but the crowd was still spellbound by the mesmerising performance of Nagar Baul's James. That is the kind of expectation, one attends a concert with and it was the case yesterday too.

On Friday, over 5,000 audiences attended "The School of Rock Volume 1" concert at the International Convention City Bashundhara (ICCB), where eight bands headlined by James of Nagar Baul kept the audience at their feet.

The musical show was centered around the theme "Cause for Paws". A portion of the collected revenue would be pledged towards the treatment, nutrition and vaccination of stray cats and dogs in our city.

From the new to the established – the organiser brought together different generations of Bangladeshi bands in this concert lineup which included AK Rahul, Plasmic Knock, Aftermath, Karnival, Shonar Bangla Circus, Avoidrafa, Warfaze and James' Nagar Baul.

A young band called Meastroo opened the show at around 3:15 pm. The organisers previously, held a selection process to present an opportunity for one emerging band to share the stage with the music icons that later rocked the stage.

Their performance was followed by a powerful stage act of A K Rahul's band, where Shafat Chowdhury of Mechanix played as a guest guitarist. Shafat said that his experience at this concert was positive and joyful.

After that, Plasmic Knock, Aftermath, Karnival, Shonar Bangla Circus and Avoidrafa consecutively appeared on stage with a slot timing of almost an hour for each of the bands.

Warfaze band leader and drummer Sheikh Monirul Alam Tipu talked to The Daily Star about the significant cause behind arranging the concert, "The organiser wants to keep an old-school flavour in this concert Also, it's great that they have thought of the welfare of stray animals and taken the initiative of using a part of the proceeds for the animals."

When it was time for James, affectionately called 'Guru' by his fans, to finally take the stage the enthusiastic fans climbed over or broke through the barricades to reach as near the stage as possible. Fans waiting outside tried to cross security and get into the concert venue. However, in both cases, the organisers and the security provided by the Bashundhara group took tactfully prompt measures to keep the situation within control.

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This time around, the host of the rock show was seamlessly selected. The humorous and lively cartoonist Morshed Mishu is in the know about the rock scene which is why he fit in the whole picture naturally. The audience at large was impressed by how he presented himself.

Dhrubo, who came with his friends to enjoy the concert, said that they felt unsafe during the moments of unrest, outside the venue. They expect the organiser to be more careful by keeping ticket scanners and other security features from their next ventures.

Kamrul Islam, a college student, told The Daily Star, "Every time there is a rock concert at ICCB, I come from Mymensingh with my friends to attend it. This concert included both Shonar Bangla Circus and James, along with Aftermath. I would have bunked my classes to attend it if wasn't already Friday."

An IT professional Jubair Ahmed said, "ICCB is like my second home, as I love rock music I try to attend every concert here on weekends with either my friends or colleagues. After a month of grievance concerts are back here, so am I."

A student of Jahangirnagar University, Mamunur Rahman, said that coming to ICCB is costly for a lot of students like them, but they still try to make it because they love rock music. He suggested, "If the organisers keep students in mind to create a separate category of reasonably priced tickets for us, then more students would be able to join these experiences." He also thanked the organiser of this concert for announcing student tickets at the eleventh hour.

According to Navid Iftekhar Chowdhury, vocalist of Aftermath, the overall arrangement was amazing. "We felt safe this time. The last time we did a concert here, there was pure chaos. We expect consistency of this kind from organisers in the future as well."