IUB Ascension, the international debating tournament hosted by Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) and organized by IUB Debating Club, had its customary "break night" on Friday evening. The special event featured performances by Nemesis and Circus Police, and fire-spinning by Poi Nation.
The break night is traditionally arranged to entertain the debaters for a few hours, before the names of the teams going to knockout rounds are announced. Since the majority of the participants are no longer in the competition on the final day, traditionally the organizers make arrangements for either a concert or some kind of entertainment before the announcements. This is done to make the tournament memorable for the debaters.
And IUB Ascension organizing committee surely did make the 2019 tournament's break night memorable.
The first to be on stage was Circus Police, an experimental rock quartet comprising of Zuliyad Islam Quazi, Tanjib Chowdhury, Efaz R Khan and Zaki Adnan. They began the concert with one of their own songs Onushoron. Then they played snippets from famous songs such as AC/DC's Highway to hell, Guns N' Roses' Welcome to the Jungle, The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army, Queen's We will rock you, and many others. Needless to say, each cover of the famous songs sent the crowd into raptures. They also performed two of their own songs to loud applause.
Circus Police performs for IUB Ascension 2019 | Faruque Ratul
Then Nemesis took the stage, and made the excited crowd scream even louder. First they performed Janala and Ghuri. Even though these songs were in Bangla, such was the energy of Nemesis that even the foreign debaters and adjudicators swayed to the melody of these songs.
Nemesis then performed their most popular tracks, Obocheton and Joyodhoni. Even if there were any Ascension participants roaming around the corridors before the start of Obocheton, I am positive they must have swarmed towards the amphitheatre in which Nemesis was performing.
Nemesis's vocalist Zohad Reza Chowdhury dedicated the performance of Joyodhoni to Archi Ananya, an IUB Ascension organizing committee member and break night coordinator. The most memorable moment during this performance was seeing IUBDC President Zubair Ridoan crowd-surfing.
Nemesis ended their performance with Kobe. They thanked the IUB Ascension organizers before beginning the song, and mentioned that they have performed in almost every edition of Ascension so far. Kobe made the crowd both wild and emotional. There were some tears on the faces of some org-com members.
After Nemesis, Poi Nation began their fire-spinning. Every time Shadman Faiyaz spouted flames from his mouth, the crowd screamed their hearts out. Thus ended the break night of IUB Ascension 2019.
Shadman Faiyaz breathes fire during Poi Nation's fire spinning performance for IUB Ascension | Faruque Ratul
