[ STRINGS ARTICLE - THE TWO MAN BAND ]

The two-man band, comprising vocalist Faisal Kapadia and guitarist Bilal Maqsood, is here on an invitation from the city-based International School of Business and Media (ISB&M) and will perform on the concluding night of the institute’s threeday national cultural festival, Crescendo. The show is scheduled for 7 pm at the Elysium lawns, opposite Pyramids in Koregaon Park.

The Strings team had visited Pune briefly in February 2001. On a multi-city tour of India, the Pakistani pop musicians, icons in their own country, said their Friday night show at IIT-Kharagpur, before a 4,000-strong student audience, was perhaps their best-show ever.

However, they hope to go one-up in Pune with Faisal saying, "Pune is a rocking city with many students. We hope to have a great time."

Explaining their genre of music, Bilal says, "Ours is a very universal type of music.

Our melodies have a distinct classical flavour. Our music tends to grow on you. We are able to appeal to people from the ages of 11 to 50." According to Bilal, the present phase, under General Pervez Musharraf, has been the best for pop musicians in Pakistan.

"We have as many as three television channels dedicated to pop music alone and as many as eight FM radio stations. This is why pop music is flourishing in our country." The duo is happy that India and Pakistan are talking peace with each other. "This is the best time for both the nations.

We are keeping our fingers crossed. Future mein milke hi kaam karna hain, aur chaara nahin hain," says Bilal. The team has high praise for Indian musicians, particularly for vocalist Hariharan, with whom they have collaborated recently.

"We have also had the pleasure of working with Sagarika and the Euphoria group," says Faisal. On the music industry in India, the team feels that Hindi film music is discouraging Indian pop bands from performing in Urdu and Hindi. They however, feel the situation is slowly changing with Indian bands like Silk Route and Euphoria making an attempt to sing in Hindi and Urdu.