Sri Lanka’s First 24 Hour Online Concert Is On This Saturday

With A Little Help From Our Friends is an all new online concert I like any other. Spanning for 25 hours non stop from lanka and whenever lankans are globally, this concert is a fund raiser too and we got speaking to Buddhi De Mal, who is one of the main people behind the project.

DB: How’s life for you and the team?

Buddhi: Life is all the same for us these days due to Covid – 19, so we thought of doing something useful to society by helping out fellow Sri Lankan artists in need.

DB : Tell us about this concert concept?

Buddhi : It’s going to be a 24 hour long Live streaming concert hosted by “With a Little Help From Our Friends”, featuring 50 Sri Lankan artists from around the world, joining in to raise funds for Sri Lankan artists struggling these days to survive due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Anyone watching the live stream from anywhere in the world will be able to make donations to the bank account details mentioned on the live stream and the facebook page.

DB: Who’s idea was this and tell us about the team that’s involved?

Buddhi : Well, the idea was brought up during a phone conversation between myself, Ryan Somaratna and Sashanka Atapattu which escalated in minutes to planning this 24 hour streaming concert. In short notice Riyal Riffai, Dhanushan Kaneshayogan, Hasitha Maduranga, Chinthana Munasighe, Kusal Bandaranayake, Buddheesha Pahathkumbura and Nisal Attanayake volunteered to make this venture happen.

DB : About the line up already 😀

Buddhi : We have singer-songwriters, Beatboxers, DJs, Rappers and even children’s acts performing in this gigantic online event. All the artists taking part sent in their videos to support this unique cause and anyone interested can send in their videos to helpfromourfriends@gmail.com to be considered for future concerts.

DB : How does payment work for the senders and the artists?

Buddhi : We are honored to mention that Sri Lanka’s oldest and most reputed record label, Sooriya Records has come on board in order to collect the funds and disburse them to the relevant artists after the show is over.

DB : Is this going to continue for the entire period of Covid 19 or is this a monthly thing for now?

Buddhi : If the first edition goes well and we are able to raise enough funds for the struggling artists, we will definitely make this a monthly program till our Sri Lankan artists can get back on their feet.

DB : Where can people find you and anything you’d wanna say in closing?

Buddhi : Thank you very much for standing with us in this hour of need, and we hope you can join us from 9am, 6th June to 9am, 7th June 2020. The link to access the gig will be published on our FB and Instagram pages (@helpfromourfriends).

Click here for the fb link