From Balochistan, with love

ome concerts fill a venue. Others fill the room with something you can’t quite name, a sense of being somewhere real. In the last week of April, Ustad Noor Bakhsh’s evening at the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi’s open-air theatre was very much the latter.

Known for his utterly distinctive banjo playing and a vocal style that seems to carry the landscape of Balochistan within it, Ustad Noor Bakhsh had the audience’s attention from the very first note. He moved easily between folk melodies and crowd favourites, including ‘Laila O Laila’.

The performance drew an enthusiastic response, with the audience joining in the traditional Dochapi dance, adding a lively, rhythmic pulse to the evening.

It was festive, immersive and alive, a gentle but powerful reminder that regional music traditions aren’t relics to be preserved behind glass, but are living, breathing things that still know exactly how to move people.