In the last three decades, singer-songwriter Nabin K Bhattarai has performed thousands of live shows at both national and international venues with his band. Even today, his passion for live performances remains the same. For him, performing live is what keeps music—and the entire art form alive. He especially cherishes the interaction with the audience that unfolds during his shows.
“Those interactions in live shows are one of the most beautiful parts of music,” says Bhattarai.
Together through music
Bhattarai, who loves performing live more than anything else, is now excited as he prepares to perform for the first time at Lord of the Drinks, one of the country’s top clubs, on August 23, with his band Nabin K Bhattarai and the Atripta which features Bhattarai on vocals, Bhaskar Raj Ghimire and Bishal Chhetri on guitar, Dhiraj Chhetri on keyboard, Chandan Darshandhari on bass and Prabhat Risal on drums.
Interestingly, he has never set foot in a club, not even as an audience member, which makes him all the more curious about this upcoming show.
Bhattarai, except in a couple of exceptional cases, has always performed with a band. He finds performing with a band more authentic and joyful, than performing in the karaoke. He has refused to perform in a lot of shows because the organiser asked him to perform in a karaoke.
The thing that keeps him connected to his band is his background in music education. He earned a bachelor’s degree in ethnomusicology from Kathmandu University, where he was part of the very first batch of students in the program. His education encouraged him to explore different instruments and helped him appreciate the essence of working together with band members.
Secondly, his inspirations, bands such as Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and Guns N’ Roses, motivated him to perform with a band.
“Performing with a band has a different energy; it provides enough space for improvisation,” says Bhattarai. “Karaoke performances do not offer such an experience.”
Beauty in imperfection
Speaking to Onlinekhabar, Bhattarai recalls his first live show in the early 1990s at the National Academy Hall with his band Steel Wheels, where they performed Pink Floyd’s iconic track Time.
Since then, Bhattarai has witnessed a plethora of changes in the live music scene—in terms of stage setup, technology, equipment, audiences, and more. Back then, everything was analogue, whereas today almost everything has gone digital.
“The pace of technological advancement is so rapid that sometimes it’s hard to keep up,” says Bhattarai.
According to Bhattarai, the advancement of technology in music has been helpful in many ways, but at the same time, it is also making music sound robotic.
“Under the pretext of being perfect, musicians these days, even during live shows, are becoming overly dependent on technology, which in fact is killing the art,” says Bhattarai. “There is no such thing as perfection in art; the small errors that occur during a live performance are the true beauty of live music.”
Besides his evergreen hits like Aankhama Timilai, Timilai Ma Dobaato Ma, Eh Jhari, Sanjha Pakha, Raat Bityo and many others, Bhattarai is also well known for his live performances, which are consistently well received by audiences. According to him, practice, patience, and consistency are the key elements that make a band tight—ultimately allowing them to deliver a proper show.
His band also follows certain pre-show and post-show rituals, which, he believes, play a vital role in ensuring a good performance. One of their main rituals is practicing three days a week leading up to a show, but deliberately avoiding practice the day before. Each session lasts for a maximum of two hours.
“If we practice one day before a show and any band member makes a mistake during rehearsal, that mistake tends to linger in their mind, which can negatively affect their performance on stage,” says Bhattarai.
On the day of the performance, another pre-show ritual is to avoid talking about music as much as possible. After the show, however, the band reviews each other’s performances and works on resolving any issues to improve future shows.
Hiatus to harmony
Before wrapping up the conversation, Bhattarai shared his latest works and upcoming projects. After a hiatus of four years, he recently released the music video for Pagal Bhaisake.
“I took a break all these years because I was busy making music and preparing for an album that will be released soon,” he explains.
He also revealed his next project to Onlinekhabar:
“My music video for the song Timro Haat Samai is dropping soon,” he says.
