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Two diverse streams of music were brought together at Spring Fever, a show that launched event company Utopia last weekend. The open-air venue, Chi @The Lodge, Dubai, reverberated with the sounds of Atif Aslam's soft rock/pop ballads and Talvin Singh's techno tabla electronica.
The show kicked off a little after 10pm and continued into the wee hours of Sunday morning. The first set featured
British-Indian percussionist and DJ Talvin Singh, Tunisian oud artiste Jean-Pierre Smadja, and Indian sitar virtuoso Niladri Kumar, whose music was introduced by Talvin as a cross between "Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar."
At the stroke of midnight, the hugely popular Atif Aslam took to the stage. He opened his set with the smash hit Bheegi
Bheegi Yaadein, and then went on to regale the 1,900-strong crowd with a mix of his Bollywood chart toppers, cover versions and some of the tracks from his last album. Atif's stage performance was a breezy mix of audience interaction, hi-jinks fun and serious music.
In his set with Talvin, he chose to sing a folksy Pakistani number, Maye Ni Main Kinnu Aakha, a Sufi song he dedicated to his mother.
The last segment of the evening featured DJ Akbar Sami, who rocked the house until 3 in the morning. The action then shifted to the after-show party at Utopia head Umesh Amarnani's penthouse. Atif was still in fine form and regaled guests with his renditions of old Bollywood melodies and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs. He was joined by Dubai talent Jonas Desai, who recently performed at the Dubai International Jazz Festival.
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