‘Overload Live at the Apartment’

The ‘band-wagon’ of Overload’s Farhad and Shiraz, along with Shahzad Hameed, Farhan Ali, Haroon Shahid and Hassaan, was on its way to Lahore on the Motorway in March this year. The guys were all in a mutually upset state of mind. They had been jamming for days and even nights, preparing one set that they were supposed to perform live before a tightly packed audience, and another for more to follow during the same show, who were waiting in desperate queues right outside ‘Kuch Khaas’ in Islamabad. They were low on sleep, angry and disappointed because of the unexpected rain-pour at the Open Air Auditorium there, and that too just a little after the plug-ins and sound check were complete, and they were ready to rock the place! This time around, apart from living up to their reputation as the ‘loudest rock band of Pakistan’, their track line-up also included three softer songs, being U2’s ‘One’, and a couple of Stereophonics’ pop-rock numbers, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ and ‘Dakota’.
Being the ‘Do or Die’ enthusiast that the founder, drummer and now vocalist too that Farhad Humayun is, he came up with an idea. Upon returning to Lahore, the jam room at the guy’s apartment was the venue, Hassaan had his camera rolling, and the rest of the boys had their instruments tuned and plugged in, all set to play. The three covers scheduled for the mellow rock performances were done, and recorded. Smiling, Farhad says, “‘Overload Live at the Apartment’ was never a pre-conceived project. Its emergence was more of a coincidence in fact.”
Considering the undeniably unpredictable circumstances of Pakistan, due to which either live concerts do not happen in the first place, or they get cancelled, the band decided to upload the videos on YouTube. The first of their weekly episodes, with the ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ cover got 2000 hits: not bad at all! Now this was NOT an original Overload song, neither was performed only by the regular members, with Farhad (on vocals and drums), Shiraz Siddiq (on keyboards and backing vocals), Shahzad Hameed and Haroon Shahid (lead and acoustic guitars/backing vocals, respectively) and Farhan Ali (bass). Both these factors resulted in yet another re-invention of the band, and created hype among fans and the otherwise audience too. Also, the home production element and inclusion of the public in ‘Behind the Scene’ scenes of the making of some great music was something people could relate to more.
Overload as a band own the credit of having introduced a new genre, namely ‘Instrumental’. According to Shiraz and Farhad, the two permanent members, “Not that this is our band, but the sound we make is unique to the distinctive identity of Overload.” Since it was founded by Farhad in 2004, they have had 3800 live performances across the globe, and the band has gone through a radical evolutionary process of its signature music style since. From an intense diversity of drum beats to promoting artists including international exposure to Pappu Saaein, the best acclaimed dhol player in the world, to the introduction of the ‘rock star persona’ of Meesha Shafi (formerly a fashion model), to Farhad’s work on some of Atif Aslam’s important productions (musical arrangements and band synchronization), to the release of ‘Neray Aa’, it has been a crazy, mad journey!
Apart from these factors, Farhad is of the view, “Overload has always been a platform for different musicians. I think the Apartment project serves as a step towards building up the (demolishing) music industry, since things started changing drastically here, particularly after the Musharraf regime.” So far, the first season of Overload’s ‘Live at the Apartment’ has uploaded ten videos on YouTube. Following the first three are ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ (Led Zepplin cover), ‘Here I Go Again’ (White Snake cover), ‘Dream On’ (Aerosmith cover) and ‘Vichar Gae’ (original) by the band. Other bands, one in each of two episodes of the season have been AlterEgo performing ‘The Kill’ (30 Seconds to Mars cover) and Symt with their original ‘Zamana’. A collaboration done with Club Caramel, ‘Rolling in the Deep’ (Adelaide cover) with Kiran Chaudry on the vocals, got 10,000 hits in its first week in episode 9.
‘Vichar Gae’s melody was arranged so as to add a flavour of the classical sound of the clarinet by Ustaad Jaffer Hussain. This blended so perfectly with the traditional Punjabi lyrics, alongside the rock-and-roll impact of the guitars and drums, that it even inspired an Indian online channel to “borrow some musical tips”. For ‘Vichar Gae’, Kenny was on drums and Umair Nadeem on the guitars. “Just because we are the ‘Loudest Band of Pakistan’ does not mean we do not ever listen to, for example, Tony Bennet,” Farhad remarks. ‘Overload Live at the Apartment’ follows the founder’s agenda of being true to your passion for musical expression. It was not meant to be, and hopefully would not turn into a commercial tactic to entice music lovers or aspiring musicians for the sake of money-making. In fact, it is an Indie scene with a cult following already gathering up gradually.
Sharing his experience of the seventh episode, Asim Khan, the lead guitarist in the band AlterEgo mentions, “I got to play with people with more exposure than us in the music industry, which was awesome. I believe it is a good platform for providing creative freedom to musicians generally, and also underground bands like in our case.”
Overload has not only been working already with raw talent before, but plans to encourage those that ‘have it in them’ to come out in the open, and be heard. Farhad speaks of a brilliant 16-year-old guitar player, whom also they shall do music with in the future.
The latest song at the Apartment sessions that came out recently and has made big waves is ‘Neray Aa’. It is basically a rock version of the original Punjabi song from the hit Syed Noor film ‘Choorian’, and gave a whole new outfit to the image of the song, and a brand new outlook to that of the band itself. The video shot for this is also a value addition to the audio, featuring celebrity friends and including a versatile visual treatment of the glam look implied with styling by Khawar Riaz and creative body paints plus costumes by Ali Zishan. Khawar Riaz comments, “This was a first-time experience for me to do this kind of a project, but it was so much fun and I’m glad to see the way it turned out and caught the public’s attention.”
The characters in the video for ‘Neray Aa’ comprise a sort of a human jungle, with celebrities such as Aminah Haq, husband Ammar Belal, model Sabina Pasha, and also amateur, rising artists like actress Zainab. Sabina is of the view that this is a wonderful way of paying tribute to our rich Punjabi culture, and also to the Pakistani film industry, that is so much in doldrums for a while now. Currently, Overload does 3 days of jam and recording, and then uploads their weekly YouTube video towards the weekend. “There are definitely new ideas both in the making, and in the pipeline for the Apartment project,” Farhad Humayun confesses only this statement on that for now. And from the look of the band’s track record and mad musical journey, there seem to be good developments up the founder’s sleeve!

The writer is an inquisitive soul and seeks to study life at its purest, for which she explores different forms, the primary being poetry, music, visual arts and sociology.