Last week, ‘Pepsi Battle of the Bands’ picked Auj as the winner of season four. The Karachi-based, all male rock band gained victory over Aarish, the other finalist band, and walked away with a cheque of Rs5000,000, an album contract and lifetime royalties of the originals they had performed in the season’s episodes.
The grand finale followed two months of intense jamming and performances by the participating bands, before a panel of star judges — Fawad Khan, Meesha Shafi, Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia (of Strings). It also saw performances by Khan, Shafi, qawwals Fareed Ayaz and Abu Mohammad, and previous seasons’ winners Kashmir and Bayaan.
All said and done, this year’s ‘BOTB’ failed to turn up the heat. At best, it was a lacklustre affair, marked by monotony and repetitiveness.
Replacing Ahmad Ali Butt and Ayesha Omar with Ali Safina and Hina Altaf as hosts, also proved to be a bad idea.
