As actor and singer Paresh Pahuja performed his final gig on April 28 at the Royal Opera House, which was to mark the culmination of his first tour, the one song his audience couldn’t have enough of was his rendition of late KK’s Yaaron. “It was emotional for all of us because after every show, we’d be preparing for the next one. This time, we knew this was the last song we would be performing,” he says, when we get on a call with him. 

The singer tells us that the Voice Notes Concert India Tour, which kicked off in March, was not your standard concert. In an era of over-the-top shows, his tour blended voice memos, evocative storytelling, and stripped-down live performances to reimagine what a musical journey could feel like. Having toured Delhi, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Mumbai, he says that its genesis came from a personal low phase. He reflects, “I wanted to get on stage because I was feeling a little lost in life, a little powerless, because I was not working last year. So I asked myself, when was the last time in my life I felt empowered? It was in college, while performing on stage. I connected with a few friends whom I’d met on Bandish Bandits, and we started jamming. We booked a small venue in Mumbai. And that little thing [led us to begin a tour].”