Feature

Nazia Ahmed

The hunt for the ultimate rock band; the D-rockstar has finally hit Dhaka! With a whooping 373 number of registered bands in the city, the judges had to look for an alternative to go through with the audition round, as it would have been impossible to audition all of them at once. So a pre screening round, as they put it, kicked off on the 18th and more or less covered a good number of bands that were called in for the final audition on the 22nd and 23rd.

The five criteria, song, composition, performance, attitude and knowledge, stood firm on the ground as each band played for the judges in Sports Zone, Mohakhali from early hours till 6 in the evening. “A band needs to have a character of its own. And the rendition must be a team work and not just a one man show; delivering a high powered output is what the performance all about.” Says Bappa Majumdar (BAMBA).

Some of the major mess-ups were mainly with the vocals, and the judges did not spare any one on that regard.

“Attire is something that effects the initial impression. So as a band with a coarse getup stood in front, we immediately gave up on them. But as soon as they started, a bolt from the blue struck the audience as the band rendered an excellently orchestrated heavy death metal number!” says Salman (former D-rockstar). But being unpredictable is one thing and unprepared is another. It was seen that some of those “unprepared” ones were actually amateur music troops who formed a band a few days back just to give it a try. Little did they know; the judges were more than crucial on that regard and did not hesitate to boo them off the stage. Even with all the “Simon Cowell” stunts and adrenaline rushes, the audition round was particularly enlightening for both the participants and the audience in front of the TV set.

The bands that have been chosen will be announced via media on the 26th and their grooming session will be firing off from the 29th. All the back-to-back episodes of these events are being aired on Channel-I every Tuesday and Thursday 7.50pm. With Sony Ericsson as co-partners and conceptualised by Bitopi Advertising Ltd, the show is organized by spotlight entertainment and directed by Red Dot Multimedia Ltd.