A concerted effort!

A rap artist, a guitar, two telly wannabes, a jazzy stage…does not maketh a concert! No? Read on. Sony's show, Kaisa Ye Pyar Hai, seems to be trying out everything to get its house in order, before the blitzkrieg called KBC II hits on 5 August. The latest gimmick is an hour long concert to promote its in-house rock stars, Angad and his girl, Kripa. Angad's popularity has soared since the day the character was launched with such fanfare on the channel. Recently, a leading news channel not only profiled a day in his life back home in Kashmir, but also went overboard with promos during regular news bulletins. So much for non-fiction programming on television! Anyway, coming back to the concert, it was a straight six hour shoot in Jeevan Mills in Andheri East in suburban Mumbai on 18 July. The one hour episode that features rapster Devang Patel, singer Sonu Kakkar, telly star Chetan Hansraj, Indian Idol finalist Aditi Paul and others, will be on air on 26 July. Sister show, Fame Gurukul's participants were also in attendance and slotted to perform later in the night. As we reached the sets, the only traces of a concert was by the 60-70 odd teens who were gathered around the mill compound, waiting for the stars to turn up - we realised that they would comprise the mock crowd that would be seen cheering Angad and company. The mock concert took ages to get underway - either the crowd wasn't enthusiastic enough, or some other time the stage wasn't clean enough. Most of the time it was the earlier bit that caused major problems - but you can't blame the crowd. At one in the night, it takes a lot of good spirit to shake a leg to a pre-recorded number mouthed by a hip shaking, pelvic thrusting singer…! Fame Gurukul contestants would be a better bet, any day! Talking of Fame Gurukul, the participants looked wee bit out of place, (herded in by a lady who seemed more like a class monitor than anything else) in what might be called a 'mock' situation. Now there is nothing staged as far as their own competition is concerned, and they seemed to be taking this performance very seriously. As soon as they seated themselves, they started practicing their numbers and from what we heard, they really are masters of their art!One person who is making her presence felt in what might be called meaningful television is perhaps Nigaar Khan. She was recently seen in Sony's Rihhaee, but also in Star One's Siddhanth. She will be seen in KYPH doing what we have seen her do before --- an item number! Well, before we forget about it, the lead couple were conspicuous with their absence in the venue, although we were told that they would be there by 12:30 pm...but the stars failed to shine...and we waited...and eventually forgot about it! Meanwhile, in the show, Angad, on being enlightened by his cousin that the sorry state of affairs in his life is not due to Kripa's betrayal, tries to help his lady love to become a popular rock star. He decides to rope in his friends from the rock world to sing with Kripa. This mega concert is the result of all these mechanisations. KYPH was one of those shows that made heads turn due to its very different theme and content, specially after Indian Idol it successfully cashed in on the hysteria created by the reality show. The show was further boosted by the powerful presence of Iqbal Khan as Angad, but with the falling TRPs of Jassi…and now, CID as well, will the show be able to hold its own with Big B close on its heels? Let's see…