This week’s episode of Pepsi Battle of the Bands (BOB) showed us an assortment of seven new bands. They all brought a mix of covers and some praise-worthy originals that kept us hooked to our television screens. Kaaghaz, Déjà vu, OB Positive, Aarish, Easy Games, Bayaan and 21 The Band were the seven bands that performed in Episode 2 and interestingly, renditions of old songs were done very differently this time, where the musicians tried adding their own flavour to the tunes.
One such song was an iconic Junoon track ‘Taara Jala,’ which was done differently by the band Kaaghaz comprising a female lead vocalist who lent her confident vocals adding some authenticity to the original track. Interestingly, it struck a chord with the judges and it looked like the band would make it to the shortlisted bands.
The band Déjà Vu covered Sajjad Ali’s ‘Bolo Bolo’ which has been done by a lot of musicians earlier. The band gave the tune a fun jazzy spin, which worked for them and the judges rightly suggested they change their name to Deja Blues since they could feel the vibes of the said genre.
OB Positive was another band comprising five boys who were participating for the second time in Pepsi BOB. They did a cover of Junaid Jamshed’s famous track ‘Aankhon Ko Aankhon Ne’ but unfortunately their rendition didn’t work in their favour.
Bands like Aarish, Bayaan and 21 The Band were the ones who presented their original tracks. The last performance however was quite memorable for us. The song ‘Taare’ by 21 The Band was a foot-tapping track with a perfect punk rock-ish feel, which we are yet to witness in local bands. Even the judges thought so! The tune was fresh and peppy and the lyrics were fun taking us back to the times when Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Blink 182 were our go-to bands to get a kick of punk rock.
What made Episode 2 gripping enough, other than the performances, was the shortlist of eight bands from the plethora of bands that performed in Season 3. Tamaasha, Bayaan, Xarb, Kaaghaz, Déjà vu, Sarmasta, 21- The Band and Khamaaj made it to the top eight bands. However, we were sad to see the band Dhool bid farewell to the show; we thought they had great potential when we first saw them perform.
All in all, we are looking forward to some more electrifying performances this season and the interesting observations shared by Farooq Ahmed, Meesha Shafi and Fawad Khan just make the whole experience a pleasurable watch.
Also read: Pepsi BOB: Khamaj won the judges over with their spellbinding performance
Watch the complete episode here:
