One can take Indians out of Bollywood, but one simply cannot take Bollywood out of an Indian’s heart. No matter where we go, what we become, Bollywood music remains evergreen in our hearts.
Dedicated to Bollywood music lovers, the Hungama Bollywood Music Project, presented by the Bhutani Group, was celebrated as Asia’s largest Bollywood Music Festival. The two day carnival was organized by Event Capital (a Laqshya Media Group Company) and TM Talent Management, and saw a footfall of over 20,000 people, comprising of 60 iconic artistes and supported by over 200 musicians on three stages.The festival also showcased an array of music genres such as contemporary, folk, Punjabi, rap, sufi, pop and hip hop.
Held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on 25-26 March 2017, the theme of the festival was called “CIRQUE”. The festival had larger than life installations based on this theme. There were selfie booths for music lovers with quirky props. Even though the performances begun at 2PM on both days which acted as an obstacle for the audience due to its high temperature, the response of the audience was phenomenal in Delhi.
Although, there are many music extravaganzas in India but there is no festival that devoted to the Bollywood music genre. BMP has firmly established its mark in Delhi after having laid out its foundation earlier in Mumbai. With two successful editions of the festival in its debut year itself, they are going strong and intend to continue the magic over the coming years also.
Audience not only enjoyed the seasoned artistes but also encouraged upcoming artistes by swooning to the songs sung by them. Some of the upcoming artistes who managed a good turnover of audience were Lagori, Vipin Aneja, Meenal Jain, Bhaven Dhanak, Rakesh Maini & Sumedha Karmahe, Astitva, Maadhyam. Reality show famed Darshan Raval won hearts by singing classic Kya huaTera Vada and Humma Humma. Other upcoming artistes who performed during the festival were Gaurav Dutta, Goldie Sohel, Charu Semiwal, Shuchismita Das who sang the romantic number Samjhawan, Harish Moyal, Faridkot, AshishChhabra and Akasa Singh.
According to Tarsame Mittal, Founder of TM Talent Management, “There are always some people who don’t like a particular genre of music, yet Bollywood remains the biggest genre of music in India. So it’s like earlier if 95% people used to tune into Bollywood, it might be 90% now. Bollywood is known to adapt to changes, anything which is successful. If an independent sound is successful like Honey Singh, Bollywood adapts to it.”
The much awaited performances of the festival were by Amit Trivedi, Rekha Bharadwaj, Vishal shekhar, Badshah, even the performances of singers such as Mame Khan,Zublee Baruah , Arko, Sukriti Kakar & Prakriti Kakar, Divya Kumar &Shefali Alvares Sunny M.R, Naksh, Aziz and Shalmali Kholgade set the stage on fire.
“I’d give up anything to listen to ‘Kabira’ live by Rekha Bharadwaj. I still cannot wait for her to be on the stage,” said one of the audiences, TiyashiDatta, who is a huge fan of Bollywood Sufi music.
People kept switching stages to make sure that they enjoy the variety of songs being doled out by seasoned artistes and upcoming artistes like Mame Khan’s Padharo Mhare Des, Jassie Gill’s Baapu tera Laden toh nahi.
Seeing the similarity between several musical festivals, Tarsame Mittal stated that BMP and NH7 would be like Big Baazar and Hyper City Mall, they might sell the same product but they don’t compete with each other.
On this occasion, Swaroop Banerjee, CEO, Event Capital, said, “We wanted to bring Bollywood together under a festival format and go to the same audiences. Our audience are no different, may be they go to NH7, Sunburn or Supersonic but they are still breaking their hearts, going down on their knees, and proposing with what they’ve grown up with, which is Bollywood music. We are proud to announce that we are unapologetically Bollywood and we love the fact that fans have loved us.”