OUT OF THE ORDINARY’

Farhan Akhtar the musician is just cherishing performing live and being himself, no more, no less

Back on the road for live gigs and in love with life as a musician, Farhan Akhtar might just be channelling Audioslave’s Be Yourself. Being on the stage, the singer-actorfilmmaker admits, has helped him realise the importance of living in the moment.

“The more I perform live, the more I realise that it is important to be yourself on stage. There is no need to do anything out of the ordinary. You can just go there and perform. It’s important to enjoy what you are doing,” he says.

Akhtar is cherishing the sheer ability to perform again after the majorly soundless phase of the pandemic. “It was frustrating for everyone to be confined within their homes. Now, things are back in a big way. There’s huge excitement to meet everyone, congregate in groups and have community experiences,” he beams.

Akhtar recently performed some of his original English songs from the album Echoes, at a music festival. He will once again use the live performance ground at Vh1 Supersonic to witness people’s reaction to his new music.

Performing new, unreleased music at different gigs helps the musician gauge audience response across a wide spectrum of listeners. “Each venue has a new audience. For instance, at [my next gig], an audience looking for different kinds of music will come. It is nice to get a sense of how people who have not heard this music before, will feel about it,” the 49-year-old says.

The lion’s share of the audience’s attention that mainstream Hindi music gets vis-à-vis indie music is often a subject of discussion. Akhtar, whose film music credits include Rock On!! (2008), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) and Dil Dhadakne Do (2015), is not especially worried.

“Everything has its audience, and the Hindi music scene will always have more listeners than the indie music scene. I practise that one has to be true to oneself. As a writer, my music is how I feel I can best express myself. I have done what I feel was right, and there is an audience for it,” he says.

“I see the English independent work as a place where I want to continue down the same path. I don’t really have a clear idea of what it will be. But do I want to keep going down this path and continue down this journey of selfexpression through music? Absolutely,” Akhtar wraps up.

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/FAROUTAKHTAR