The late show and the shaky end

The much-anticipated Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani concert left fans disappointed and enraged as the two Bollywood musical directors failed to show up on time to their own show on Saturday night.

The dynamic duo was expected to perform for the first time in the City after an initial warm-up by DJs from around the City but didn’t arrive till 9.30 pm. Police personnel on the premises said that the show was expected to end by 10 pm. 

The event had not more than 200 people who were fed up of waiting for the artistes. “I came at 5.30 pm thinking there will be a long queue but the stage hadn’t even been set. This was the worst organised event ever,” said Neeraj Khanna, who had come to watch the show.

 The duo finally arrived at 9.30 pm and entertained the fans well beyond the given deadline. It wasn’t just the delay that annoyed the fans.

The supposedly ‘best DJs of the City’ who performed before the duo did nothing but switch tracks on their laptops and play with their mobiles. After an hour or so, they gave up. “We can listen to this music on our MP3s sitting at home,” said Neeraj. 

Despite everything, people waited until 9 pm before they had had enough. A ruckus ensued soon after and a refund was demanded. Chants of ‘refund, refund, refund’ flooded the White Orchid Convention Centre in Hebbal. It wasn’t long before conspiracy theories and talk of a scam began to float around.

“I heard from somewhere that someone involved has run away with some of the ticket money,” said Abhishek. “Even if they come for five minutes and perform, they will get the money but we are the ones losing out,” said another fan. 

There was a reason for people to be upset and worried. The tickets were priced at an exorbitant amount of Rs 4,000 and Rs 2,500. After the concert started, everyone was let into the front making the pricing meaningless.

But there are always two (or more) sides to a story. The organisers, Claret Sun, claim that the reason the musicians were late was because they weren’t paid on time.

Vishal and Shekhar were unavailable for comment but took to social media sites such as Twitter to express their views regarding the matter. “The organiser of the VS Bangalore show has screwed up very badly!! We have been waiting to get paid, but the balance money hasn’t come (sic),” tweeted Vishal. 

Claret Sun said they were very apologetic about the whole thing. “The middle-man involved absconded with large amounts of money and we were left with nothing. We filed a police complaint but they aren’t doing anything about it,” said the proprietor.

 The organisers had paid most of the money but the artistes insisted on being paid the full amount before agreeing to perform. After arriving on the scene, Vishal and Shekhar announced that they were performing free of cost for Bangaloreans.

They also said that the organisers would refund all the ticket money after performing till 11 pm. What really happened that night will remain a mystery as both parties fling mud at each other. The real question is whether the fans were given their money’s worth.

 The event, which had lost most of its charm, revved up after the supposed ‘stars’ began to perform. “@ShekharRavjiani @VishalDadlani never before I have seen such mood swing. From frustration & disappointment to jumping & dancing. You Rock,” tweeted Imran Qureshi, a fan.