ROCKNATION

The most talked about event this week was undoubtedly the LiveSquare concert at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel on the 13th of April. Featuring a lineup of eight bands, the RockNation concert was not one to miss.

The concert had a long line of fans waiting outside by 3:30, ignoring the Bengali etiquette of being fashionably late. The fans had to go through a long line of checkups to make sure they hadn't taken the “blow up the stage” motto seriously.

The first band up on the stage was Arbovirus, who gave the still-quite-thin crowd a shout out for showing up despite the consecutive hartals. The band tried their best to pull in the crowd with their song, 'Chhaya Manush'.

After Arbovirus, Jon, with Indaloo frontman Jon on vocals, went on stage. Half way through their performance, the crowd was much thicker and had found their places. Some sat, some stood, some near the ice cream and food stalls, while some looked to buy t-shirts from the merchandise stand.

Shunno took to the stage next, during which girls from the back rushed to the front (along with bald 30 year old men who couldn't stop screaming the guitarist Michael's name). Shunno managed to animate the crowd (where Jon's efforts had been futile) with most of the crowd singing along to their song 'Godhulir Opare'.

After Shunno, Nemesis's name flashed across the screen; again it got the crowd stirred up, not just the female population of the show this time. They opened up their act with 'Obocheton', which was enough to have the whole crowd excitedly look forward to the rest of the set, which was great, with Zohad crowd surfing like a pro.

After Nemesis, the crowd got a break, after which Cryptic Fate took to the stage. Even the crowd who had preferred to sit down for most of the show stood up for their performance and sang along to their performance of 'Cholo Bangladesh.'

When Chirkutt went on stage with 'Eshohe Boishakh', the crowd had began to get frustrated with the continued absence of fan favourite band, Warfaze. As Warfaze crossed the crowd to the greenroom, the crowd screamed their loudest and Chirkutt dedicated their next performance to them.

Lalon's performance was next, but at that point the crowd had gotten so annoyed they screamed for Warfaze like a small boy deprived of his favorite toy, which was an embarrassment given Lalon's impressive talent. But as they began their performance with 'Shomoy Gele Shadhon Hobe Na,' the crowd began to sing along.

The final performance of the night came from the obvious: Warfaze, who took the stage last as the show stoppers. Warfaze delivered an electrifying performance for which their diehard fans felt their long wait from the early hours of the afternoon was worth it.

In fact, the whole eight hours of concert proved to be something that was worth the time and effort of going there. The organizers said at one point of the night that they were definitely not giving up on organizing concerts, and we sincerely hope this is true.