Somewhere between the kebab shops of Chowk and the cafés of Gomti Nagar, Lucknow has developed an appetite for something beyond its usual cultural menu: live concerts, big-name performers and the thrill of singing along with thousands of strangers. Honestly, it is about time. A concert in Lucknow means more than it does in the metros, and it is worth asking why.
Lucknow used to do evenings differently. A ghazal. A kathak recital. Galouti melting on a plate. A conversation that outlasted the music. Now, thousands of people are screaming lyrics at a stadium stage. Lucknow is doing what it has always done: taking something new and giving it tehzeeb.
For years, watching my favourite artist live meant going to Delhi. I would compare ticket prices, add up travel costs, and then face the hardest part: convincing my parents. Often the ticket was the cheapest item on the list; the permission cost far more.
“Ghar pe TV pe dekh lo,” they would say, as if a screen could replace a stadium singing one chorus together. They would probably say the same if the show were in Lucknow. The city’s Gen Z has embraced concerts wholeheartedly, but our parents are still catching up.
In Delhi and Mumbai, a concert is just one more plan on a crowded Saturday night. It competes with ten other options, ticket fatigue is real, and many in the crowd are there to be seen, phones up, barely listening. Lucknow works differently. When a big artist comes to town, the show becomes the talk of the city.
The difference between Lucknow and the metros starts with scarcity. A fan in Delhi or Mumbai can catch several shows a month, so no single night feels special, while a Lucknow fan gets only a handful of big concerts a year. That makes each one an event — group chats buzz for weeks, outfits are planned in advance and ‘after plans’ are sorted.
A few years ago, I attended Prateek Kuhad’s concert in Lucknow, and it felt like the entire town had turned up. Every other face in the crowd was someone I knew, and that, to me, is what makes a city big — the feeling that everyone shows up together.
The ‘after plan’ was to get picked up by my parents and have kulfi at moti mahal in hazratganj. No matter how far ahead Lucknow races, our little joys will never change.
It happened again with Faheem Abdullah’s recent show. My Instagram filled up with Lucknow faces posting from the crowd, easily a hundred of them. It felt like a natural fit, because poetry runs deep in Lucknow, and so does Kashmir’s love for soulful music. My friend told me when Faheem sang ‘teri nazron ka dil pe hua hai asar tu mera mehboob hai jana!’ it felt as if he was singing straight to us, and the city answered the only way it could: of course we are, Faheem.
Lucknow offers what promoters now chase: a huge, young, underserved audience. These are fans who have watched world tours on Instagram for years, with none of them stopping nearby. Lucknow puts college students, young professionals in the same arena, which makes the atmosphere louder in some ways and gentler in others.
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The infrastructure problem
The city’s biggest challenge is infrastructure. Delhi and Mumbai have decades of venues, sound crews and logistics behind them, while Lucknow has big-stadium capacity but few mid-size venues, so the jump from a small gig to a mega show is steep. That gap is both its biggest opportunity and its biggest weakness. But I would be lying if I said every big concert announcement makes me believe we have arrived as a city.
And while we are busy celebrating national artists coming to our city, I have also seen the love and enthusiasm extend to our local musicians. Lucknow has its own stories, its own sounds and its own creative talent. Surely, a city that can welcome a big-name performer can also make room for the singer trying to find their first audience. For instance at the Faheem Abdullah concert, a small gig was also shared with ‘Farak’ a song writer from lucknow famously known for his song ‘Taare’.
What I like most about this shift is that it does not have to come at the cost of the Lucknow we know. We do not have to choose between kebabs and concerts, between tehzeeb and trendy cafés, or between the old city and the new one. A city is allowed to grow without apologising for its past. In fact, perhaps this is the most Lucknowi way to evolve: welcome the new, but do it with our own flavour.
But as a Lucknowi, I find the shift exciting. After all, Lucknow’s tehzeeb does not mean the city forgets to change with time.
We have spent years telling the world that Lucknow knows how to host a mehfil. Now, perhaps, we are ready to show it that we know how to rock one, too.