Pepsi Battle of the Bands came to an end today after 8 weeks. And we hate the fact that we won’t get to wait all week for the next episode to come out and see if our favourites made it through to the next rounds. While we bid Pepsi Battle of the Bands farewell, with a very very heavy heart, here is everything that went down in this year’s grand finale, one last time.

Source: India GIFS via giphy.com

The crazy episode kicked off with the legendary ex-frontman for Junoon, Ali Azmat who’d composed a song just for this episode with the maestro Ahsan Bari

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

Ali is also on the judges’ panel for the final episode.

 

Next up was a tear-jerker from Shahi Hassan who sang an old composition by Vital Signs, and dedicated it to the legend we’ve lost, Junaid Jamshed

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

Shahi also got Roots’ drummer, Daud Ramay, to play the drums on this song with him. We also saw the genius, Asad Ahmed, himself on stage, performing with Shahi. And we think we speak for everyone when we say we were a blithering mess at the end of the song. Thank you for the love, the tears and the throwback, Shahi!

 

Meesha Shafi came up on stage and set it ablaze, in the best way possible

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

She came in with all engines fired and pharroed all the speakers that came in her way

 

The men from Josh turned around the whole environment of the show and had everyone dancing with their song, Haseena Baliye

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

The song made us want to get up and do the bhangra on a show that was dominated by rock music. Aao ji boys!

 

Aaroh took us back so many years, with the most perfect and heart-wrenching version ever of Na Kaho

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

The song was dedicated to Haider Hashmi, their lead guitarist, who is no longer with us, anymore. The song left both us and Farooq in tears, at the end of it all.

We saw Atif perform Meray Watan and surprise surprise, we were all singing along

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

 

AND WE FINALLY SAW eP PERFORM LIVE AND WE STILL CAN’T BELIEVE WE WERE ALIVE AND WITNESSED THAT

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The men were beautiful, on stage. Headbanging and whiling away. Still. Can. Not. Believe. That. Happened.

Badnaam and Kashmir performed on stage one last time

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

Badnaam, the band that’s never been in the danger zone, performed an original song that Fawad said he’d love to have heard earlier in the competition, because that’s how much he loved it

 

And it was beautiful

Source: Pepsi Pakistan

Kashmir sang Parwana Hun that made us all want to take our lighters out and swing them in the air. It was a blend of their entire journey on the show, so far. Everything they’d learned came through in this one last song on the Pepsi Battle of the Bands platform

 

Also, hello, THE WINNER FOR PEPSI BATTLE OF THE BANDS WAS ANNOUNCED

While Vasay Chaudhry, the co-host of the show, told the bands to not be disheartened by the results, because even if they lose, they might just end up in Fawad’s place lololsy. And you guuuuuuuys, Kashmir won!

Source: ftw.usatoday.com

 

 

Fans of the band and music, in general, were super excited for the win, because with return of band culture, versatility in music, and the opportunity to rock out, music won at the end!

 

There were many a congratulations

 

There was talk of how they deserved to win

 

There was our dil ki baat 

https://twitter.com/sehr_rana/status/909446159638433793

 

There was general cuteness

And the runners up themselves congratulated the band on the win!

 

 

The journey of Pepsi Battle of the Bands has been a great one, it’s had its ups and downs, it took us for an emotional joyride, and it definitely gave us some absolutely great music. We hope we get to hear lots of good music coming from both Kashmir and Badnaam, because we don’t know about you, but we haven’t gotten enough of the amazing rockstars.

P.S. We still can’t believe eP is back because OMG

Cover image via @bilal_here_ / Twitter

This content has been made in partnership with Pepsi.