Begum Return To The Stage With Four-City 'We Are Okay!' Tour

Some bands get bigger while they are away. Begum, the Delhi trio of Kartik Pillai, Karan Singh and Dhruv Bhola, spent three years off the stage, and in that time a younger set of listeners found their records anyway. In October they came back to meet them, with the four-city We Are Okay! tour.

The run opened in New Delhi on 9 October and moved to Goa the next night, then to Mumbai on 15 October and Bengaluru on 16 October. It was the band's first set of live dates since their hiatus began.

A band's band

Begum formed in Delhi in 2013 and came up through the city's independent circuit. Their records sit somewhere between experimental pop, dream pop and indie rock: Bagh in 2014, W.A.E in 2016 and Are You Okay? in 2022.

The appeal has always been in the tension. Begum write songs with real pop hooks, then let them go somewhere awkward or uneasy. It is the kind of writing that other musicians notice first, and the band picked up a reputation as a musician's favourite long before they had a wide audience.

That last album title matters here. Are You Okay? was the question the band asked in 2022. We Are Okay! reads like their answer, three years on.

What changes now

The band described the tour as an introduction to its "next iteration", which suggests the shows were less a greatest-hits run than a preview of where Begum go next. There was no new album announced alongside the dates.

For an independent act from the Delhi scene, a three-year gap is a long time. Venues change, crowds move on and new bands fill the slots. Begum's bet was that the records had kept working while they were gone. Four cities in eight days is a reasonable way to find out.

Fans who came to Begum during the gap had only ever heard them on record. For them, this run was a first look at a band they already knew well.

Dates

• New Delhi, 9 October
• Goa, 10 October
• Mumbai, 15 October
• Bengaluru, 16 October

(Source: official press release)