With the new season of Pepsi Battle of the Bands having hit airwaves with the audition episode being debut one, program co-judge, Meesha Shafi, reflected on the show’s previous participants and winners.
Speaking to Instep, she noted, “I’m watching Kashmir, Bayaan but I feel like some kind of momentum needs to be gained for them. Xarb, I really loved as well and I hope they keep producing stuff.”
Reflecting on what the show is about in-depth, Meesha Shafi noted, “Because it is battle of the bands, a lot of the time we’ll see a gifted vocalist and they’ll have a mediocre band behind them and they don’t make it. And sometimes we see a good band and a weak vocalist – they don’t make it either. So, the first criterion is we’re looking for a band, which is complete, where everybody complements each other and works as a unit and fills in the space they belong to and have command over their instruments and their role.”
Meesha Shafi continued, “The other thing is songwriting. During auditions, we listen to original and cover [songs]. So, we look at songwriting as well as how you interpret or re-work something; if you are up for covering some song, how would you handle something like that, just to get an additional idea about their music and their sensibility and their approach.”
Among covers in the past, Meesha Shafi revealed that both Kashmir’s widely hailed cover of ‘Mera Pyar’, originally by Aamir Zaki and Xarb’s cover of ‘Tashnagi’, originally by The Sabri Brothers are two of her favourites. “‘Tashnagi’ blew me away. I haven’t felt that sitting here; there was something magical and broody and mysterious and intoxicating about it.”
–Keep watching this space for more on PBOTB
