Posted on June 30, 2010 - by Imelda

Taqwacore at Meltdown- The Kominas +Al-Thawra + Fun-Da-Mental +Poetic Pilgrimage + Michael Muhammad Knight

Queen Elizabeth Hall – South Bank Centre
London, UK
Saturday 19 June 2010

For those not heading out to a field (or even just a park) for their musical festival experience, summer in London still offers up the annual Meltdown Festival. For those unfamiliar with the event, Meltdown is held within the sprawling concrete jungle that is the South Bank Centre and hosts a summer season of arts events selected each year by a different prominent figure from the music world. Previous years have seen the likes of Patti Smith, John Peel and Elvis Costello providing the Thames-side venue with their personal wish-list of acts.

This year it’s the turn of Richard Thompson and his diverse selection includes an evening dedicated to Islamic punk under the banner of Taqwacore.

Taqwacore, as a movement, seems to be a collection of acts from various different countries involved in both punk and Islam. However, it’s not quite that simple. Michael Muhammad Knight, the author of the novel ‘The Taqwacores’, which preceded, ignited and gave its name to the scene, reveals that the movement now includes punks who are not involved in Islam, as well as Muslims who are not involved in punk.

This slightly vague grasp of the definition and current direction of this interesting movement seemed to pervade both the event and some of the people I spoke to.

However, it was indeed an interesting evening, a mini-festival of its own, with wrist-banded gig-goers able to roam between the main hall, a cinema and a discussions/DJ foyer area. The concert hall featured hardcore metal punks Al-Thawra from Chicago, British hip-hop world fusion masters Fun-Da-Mental and The Komidas from Boston, USA.

Members of The Komidas were featured heavily in the documentary film ‘Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam’, which was run on a loop during the evening. I managed to see most of one showing and it was both a compelling personal, spiritual journey for Knight and an interesting look at attempts by musicians with a Taqwacore message to be heard in both the West and in Asia. In one scene a band are stopped from playing half way through a set at an Islamic convention due to breaking the rules – including allowing a woman to sing in the band.What was most interesting was the reaction of various audience members – some heartily in favour, some outraged.

Knight was interviewed, along with the film’s director Omar Majeed, in the breaks between bands, to further describe the foundations and blossoming of this underground movement and there were more questions from the audience than time allowed.

The two disappointing aspects of the event, were the rather low turnout (the auditorium during even the headline act was only half full) and the poor sound quality of the venue. This made it almost impossible to work out what the bands were singing about – given the emphasis on message (and a rarely sung one at that) for this movement, it seemed a particular waste. And whilst The Komidas put on a lively, punk/ska show, it was middle-billed band Fun-Da-Mental who stole the night. They put on such an explosive set, with an incredibly layered approach and varied tempo and style that, even with the bad sound balance, made them easily more spectacular than the headliners.

All in all a thought provoking evening, but perhaps lacking in enough or properly targeted promotion to draw in enough of crowd.