Salman Ahmad's Junoon

So we went to a Salman Ahmad/Junoon concert on April 6th at the tidal basin in Washington D.C. The event was sponsored by the Pakistani Embassy and the concert was part of the annual Cherry Blossom festival here in D.C. The venue couldn't have been any better than the steps of the Thomas Jefferson memorial, in front of the tidal basin. Unfortunately, it was a very cloudy and dark day which didn't set the right ambiance for the lively music of Junoon.

The original members of the group have split up and the band now comprises of Salman Ahmad and Pandit Samir Chatterjee. I remember my first Junoon concert,when the original group was together, it was the best live concert I've ever been to. Just as Bryan, Salman, and Ali walked onto the stage, the audience was screaming and jumping up and down. In fact, I remember a stampede of die-hard fans running down the aisles toward the stage just to get a closer look at the singers. This weekend's concert was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to Junoon concerts in the past.

Although Salman Ahmad is a great guitarist, his voice doesn't have the same Junoon that Ali Azmat had. I guess the fact that they were playing in an open air venue with out all the right equipment didn't help. In fact, just this last month we saw Salman perform at a National Geographic event and that was a great concert. It was at this concert that I met Salman's wife, Samina Ahmad, who seems like a very friendly person and is interested in meeting all of Salman's fans. I also had a chance to chat with his father, who is indeed very proud of his son's accomplishments. It was nice to see how his family supports him and shares his passion for music.

Salman currently lives in New York with his family and performs/lectures on Sufi music.

U2 in IMAX 3D and Junoon at National Geographic

U2 released a 3D video of there Latin America tour, which is in IMAX theaters these days all I can say after seeing it is that it’s a show not to be missed, we saw it at the Johnson's IMAX theater in National Museum of Natural History and it was a blast, the sheer size of the screen, combined with the IMAX 3D projection technology made every detail of the concert performance stand out, the boys still have a lot of punch left in them, production quality of the whole show is really good (you don’t expect any less from the Irish band) though after seeing their live performance with Mary J Blige in the 2006 Grammys (where Bono seemed to be struggling just to be heard over Mary) I couldn’t help but think there isn’t anything more that U2 can do, yet they keep coming back better than the last time.

I think a good way to discourage video piracy for movie production houses is to make everything in 3D so that people who pay a ticket to watch that movie in cinema really get a leg up over those watching it on home theater systems (plus it would be hard to make pirated copies off of cinema screening which would cripple any efforts of releasing the movie on the DVD/internet before it even hits the cinema in many countries) Johnson IMAX Screen Size: 62.7 x 85.3 ft. / 19.1 x 26 meters.

Junoon's Salman Ahmad will be performing live in the nation’s capitol Friday 22nd February 2008, this is one show I don’t intend to miss, now here is an idea, wouldn’t it be cool if we can have a summer concert series in Rock Creek Park's Carter Barron Amphitheatre with artists such as Abida Parveen, Salman Ahmad and perhaps Fuzon. I think it’s the ultimate venue for artists who really work with the crowd. I might just do that the next time I take a break from my regular schedule (I wonder if I can convince CARE or Red Cross to fund such a charity event).