For an avid music listener, the line-up of Super Salt 2019 (SS’19) main-stage – featuring Baluch Twins, Ali Gul Pir, DJ Hussain Dossa, Shamoon Ismail, Meesha Shafi and Hamza Akram Qawwal - offered enough music to spend hours in merriment.

But Super Salt 2019 also had a lot else on display, from SuperSalt ki Supermarket where you could buy Salt Arts jackets and more to stalls selling cool badges and notebooks to ethnic clothing to live sounds by the likes of Hassan Bin Shaheen and several others. This is why SS ’19 began at 4 pm with the main-stage accessible to fans by 7 pm.

At about 4 pm the Karachi Arts Council venue was not too crammed, even as people including musicians like Meesha Shafi roamed the area, checking out stalls and meeting people. It also felt as if the crowd was and would be in tandem with the Amphitheatre where some of the country’s emerging and mainstream musicians would take the stage. In other words, the crowd would balance out like last year (more on that later).

Counting Stars

Meesha Shafi has moved to Toronto and doesn’t perform live that often – exceptions being her Pepsi performances that are not open to all. She’s also got a repertoire of songs that includes some beautiful originals, a bevy of covers, and has worked with some of the finest music producers in the country; an experience that has enriched her musical abilities to a great deal. She was playing with super group Mughal-e-Funk as well as Sherry Khattak and several others. Meesha didn’t just have young people singing along but she had everyone enchanted as she played hits including ‘Leela’, ‘Mein’, ‘Eva’, ‘Chori Chori’, ‘Bholay Bhalay’, ‘Allaf Allah Chambay Di Booti’ and ‘Aaye Laariye’. She threw her crown into the crowd, invited Nimra Rafiq (who made her Coke Studio debut as featured artist this year) to sing a song with her and a huge hug followed, along with a prayer that she goes very far on the mic. It was a beautiful moment, almost like passing on the baton and the crowd appreciated it. Meesha – meanwhile – while performing didn’t have inhibitions onstage and that meant the crowd moved with her, screaming “I love you Meesha” after every song.

Late Night

Having had the privilege of watching Shamoon Ismail perform live, I understand how he performs and how he is not someone who screams into the mic just because it is a live show. He brings character to the stage without screaming and shouting even as he jumps and does the interactive crowd swing scene. And Shamoon spent a great deal of time trying to work out the sound including walking away from the stage to the various lanes to see how the sound would come out. The surprise, however, was not the sound check but the response to Shamoon, who rightfully preceded Meesha Shafi and had gaggles of girls multiplied by a few right below the stage as well as the audience standing and grooving as he played his set, which included songs like ‘Marijuna’, ‘Karachi’, ‘Back Up Plan’, ‘Na Toon’, ‘Khayal’, ‘Tuntuna’, ‘Taare’ and ‘Magic’. Shamoon put up a great performance, one that the crowd lapped up. He should get more shows in Karachi.

Come Around
Sundown

Salt Arts resident DJ Hussain Dossa brought his deep house, world music sounds to the scene and not only was he playing his music, he came to the middle of the stage and was dancing at one point, inviting the audience to join him. Dossa is the not-so-secret trump card of Salt Arts and he’s brought out every time he is not just wanted but needed. Dossa, of course, played some Nazia Hassan as well as Khumariyaan x ‘Tamasha’ x Dossa x Salt Arts mix, a video for which is out and should tell you a great deal about his musical abilities as a DJ and producer.

No More Trouble

The opening act of the night, Balouch Twins from Lyari, although unheard of before, had a quality that made one curious about them. It also helped matters that they were very talented and as an opening act had everyone appreciative due to their raw talent.

The unnecessary,
the under-used

Adding Ali Gul Pir to the star-studded line-up felt like a non-substantial move, compared to last year’s Mughal-e-Funk, Mekaal Hasan Band, Khumariyaan and SomeWhatSuper. There was enough variety between Hussain Dossa, Meesha Shafi, Baluch Twins, and Shamoon Ismail. Ali Gul Pir is not exactly a musician. He is a performer; an entertainer. And even as he brought out a combination of his biggest hits – from ‘Modi Teri’ to ‘Wadera Ka Beta’ to the most recent ‘Karle Jo Karna Hai’ – he is not the face of real hip-hop that is spread all over the country in multiple languages. Ali is, however, a popular face to get. But the question to ask is how many popular faces do you need to cram into one show?

The worst happened to Hamza Akram Qawwal, who was scheduled to play after Meesha Shafi and consequently two-thirds of the venue had emptied as Meesha went off. Hamza Akram played beautifully, including iconic songs like ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aaya’ but it fell on deaf years because Meesha took the crowd with her.

Now we come to the other bigger problem: sound. If people in the first few lanes were having a ball (particularly those who were close to the stage), the crowd sitting in the back lanes were consistently irritated about sound and complained that they couldn’t hear. The crowd will not necessarily put the onus on the organizer – Salt Arts – but assume it is the fault of the artist whereas the artist goes into improvisation mode. And not all of it works. What sounds good onstage comes out awry to the crowd.

It also seemed as if tickets had been oversold because the constant arrival of the crowd - some of whom had tickets but were not being let in while others who were let in didn’t exactly have space - created a hodge-podge that thinned out after Shamoon Ismail and Meesha Shafi left the stage.

Though aesthetically Salt Arts lived up to its reputation again, with white kites, excellent lighting, screens on each side with melting visuals, and a background screen lit constantly with performers’ names, if only the curation had been cut to Meesha, Hamza, Shamoon, Hussain and Balouch Twins – with Meesha coming in last as the finale act, it would have done justice to Hamza Akram Qawwal. But then before that happens in the future, Salt Arts must figure out its sound issues by getting onboard a much more seasoned sound engineer who can understand the demands of the artists, all varied in nature, and work within the parameters available in Pakistan.

That’s not an easy task and one is glad they’re at least trying.