By Mannu Shahi
Kathmandu, Jan. 3: The biggest online show celebrating the New Years’ Day organized by Khukri Rum was held last Friday on 1st January 2021. Through the brand’s official Youtube channel the concert was premiered live on a traditional setting featuring six awesome musical acts playing from the Khukuri Music Studios hosted by Raymond Das Shrestha and Samriddhi Rai.
The show was also a promotional gig for their upcoming musical venture Khukuri Music Nation, search for the next star and the 16 top finalists were announced midst the performances. With a musical contract and hefty prize money of NRS. 11 lakhs for the winner, this online reality singing show will be judged by Samriddhi Rai, Sabin Rai and Bipul Chettri.
Samriddhi Rai with her acoustic group featuring Abhishek on guitars and backing vocals and Rahul on flute and shakers were the opening act for the event. They performed her hits like Ma Dami Chu, Ma Chahi Nepali and more.
The singer/ songwriter and media personality debuted in the music industry roughly six years ago with Biswas and has been actively releasing pop music ever since. Rai had also published an official lyrics video for her new single Akanksha, the same morning, which was produced by Manzil Bikram KC and video illustrations by pixabay.com.
The second act of the event were power trio The Elements, with live shows slowly re-starting in few venues across the capital, this group has been one of the few lucky ones to get places to perform more often than most others.
The major reason for this could be their devotional fan base who have been very supportive of the group and their musical endeavors, also additionally their personal musical skills and their artistic vision as this collective that was so brilliantly executed with their performance even in the online live music context.
They were followed by the legendary rock group The Axe who initiated the set with their classic hit Praya Sadhai, with just the vocals and acoustic guitars and then moving on towards their full trio routine.
They performed songs like Timro Nazar Le, Lukna Deu and some of their new materials. From the traditional line-up of the group Shiva Mukhiya on vocals and bass and Surendra Shrestha on drums continue whilst Sajal Rajbhandari took over the guitar duties when Sarad Shrestha decided to leave the group to work on his other projects Tumbleweed and Shree3 on 2006.
The event continued with Sabin Rai and Pharaoh who energized the show even more with their dynamic power packed performance. Sabin Rai on vocals, John Shrestha on guitars, Nikesh KC on guitars, Jeewan Lama on bass and Binod Tamang on drums together form one of the most technically challenging and well-oriented groups in the mainstream Nepali music industry in the current times. Their 2019 album Dhanyabad has been critically acclaimed and credited as one of the most outstanding records of the year.
Cobweb took over the stage right after with their 2018 love-ballad Mero Laagi, followed by a variety of their heavy and technical new material as well as their anthems like Timro Maya and Mercedes Benz. Finally ending with the main attraction Bipul Chettri and the Travelling Band initiating their set with Teesta, then playing songs like Muglan, Junkeri, Aashish, Nilo Aakash and Gahiro Cha.