Islamist hardliners have made singing a dangerous profession in many parts of Pakistan, but the country’s mystical Sufis continue to present a very different view of Islam, in which music is encouraged. This packed-out Barbican show featured two very different Sufi singers, both greeted as if they were pop stars. The opening – and most interesting – performance came from Sain Zahoor, now in his 70s and with a history as colourful as his clothes.
He spent part of his early life living and playing in shrines, and I first saw him nearly 10 years ago playing solo at the Mian Mir shrine in Lahore, where one of his devotees said the music was “about spiritual love that makes you dance”, and Zahoor told me he was happy to play with rock bands if the Sufi poetry remained unaltered. His performance seemed remarkably unchanged, even though he was now backed by five musicians playing flute, harmonium and drums.
Zahoor, who was dressed in a black turban, an elaborately decorated robe, beads and rings, carried an ektara lute, draped with coloured tassles. His songs (with lyrics helpfully translated on screens beside the stage) deal with spiritual searching and religious ecstasy, and his yearning, soulful voice often started slowly before building up to a foot-stomping climax, with Zahoor now spinning in the same dance moves he had shown at the Lahore shrine.
Faiz Ali Faiz, who headlined, is one of Pakistan’s most celebrated exponents of qawwali, the exuberant songs popularised in the west by the extraordinary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He began by singing fast and full-tilt, sounding technically impressive if sometimes brash, and continued in much the same style, with little variety, but ended with the triumphant Qalandar, a tribute to Nusrat, which included reminders of his classic Musstt Musstt.
• At Colston Hall, Bristol, on 29 September. Then tours until 6 October.
