The night Dhaka did vibe with Taalpatar Shepai
After a barrage of disappointing concerts, not many walked into Taalpatar Shepai’s show with great expectations. But they were greeted with a big surprise
With the recent 'disaster' show of Anuv Jain in Dhaka in the rearview, I walked into the 'Let's vibe with Taalpatar Shepai' show in Aloki, Gulshan with absolutely zero expectation. But to my utter surprise, the two young boys from Kolkata – the Taalpatar Shepai – literally owned the stage and I saw, more like I learned from them, how cool showmanship and crowd engagement could be when done correctly.
Taalpatar Shepai is a Kolkata-based two piece band, formed by Pritam Das (vocalist) and Suman Ghosh on the guitar in 2017. Suman, by the way, played a cream Fender Stratocaster at Thursday's show and often that beautiful guitar played licks reminiscent of the '70s and '80s.
Organised by Dhaka Broadcast, Hatirpool sessions started off the show, followed by Firoze Jong. Then came the headliners Taalpatar Shepai. A fairly short list of bands. I liked that. Sometimes you don't want to wait too long on your feet for the main event. Anyhow, for some reason or another, the crowd struck me as a 'woke' one.
The vibe you get from an actual music-loving crowd was amiss. It felt as if they were drawn in more by word of mouth than by the showmanship the bands had to offer. Some of them were really present to add glamour to their Instagram stories.
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Not too many people sang along with any of the bands and those who did, I'm pretty sure that they had memorised the lyrics a few days prior to the show.
Hatirpool sessions were okay. Firoze Jong were not okay. But that's just my opinion. So I'll straight away jump to Taalpatar Shepai.
The keyboardist the duo brought with them wasn't a part of their band but that guy knows his way with the keys. Most of Taalpatar Shepai's songs had synthesised piano medleys but they set the mood right, whatever the song – soft or funky. Instrument wise, the band sounded tight.
Pritam had an excellent voice! I was wondering how he might sound live, but he lived up to my expectations. In fact, he sang soft songs with the same energy as he did with the upbeat ones, like 'Moshader Chumu'. I know… that's a weird song title, but you should've seen the way they engaged the crowd during that song.
Speaking of crowd engagement, after performing this song once, they chose a young boy from the crowd to sing along with them and invited him on stage. Then they called up another little girl on stage and the three then sang Moshader Chumu again.
The band knew how to set the mood right. "I was always told about Dhaka's traffic situation. Stuck in this, I was thinking about 'Chander Shohor'. I was a dreamer when I was little. As I was growing up, I was told not to dream, but I never gave up dreaming," Pritam said before singing the opening verse of 'Chander Shohor'.
Then they covered 'Dhadhar Cheye O Jotil Tumi', by Gorer Maath. They reprised 'Amra Shobai Raja' in their own way, a popular patriotic song by none other than Rabi Thakur. The show was nearing its end at this point and they had to sing their crowd favourites that they were saving for last.
Their second to last song was 'Moddhorate'. As they sang the soft song, the crowd took out their phones' flashlights and waved it in the air. This has sort of become a concert-cultural phenomenon.
At last they moved on to 'Ami Shudhu Khujechi Amay', their song about self discovery. From the title it was supposed to sound like a low and hearty song but it was quite upbeat. The crowd loved it, I loved it and Taalpatar Shepai loved singing it. They sang it once but Pritam wanted to go a second time as well. To engage the crowd again, he walked to the centre of the venue to perform and that was a joyful moment for all.
