Pop star Remo Fernandes is celebrating his 50^th birthday on May 8 by throwing a free concert in Panaji to promote awareness about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

"A free show and a life-saving message. What a lovely way to celebrate a birthday," the Goa-based pop singer told rediff.com. The state government is lending a helping hand to the singer to organise the show, just as it did during shows the singer had organised in 1980s to raise awareness about AIDS.

Fernandes is also getting all the bands, with whom he had been associated from his early days, to perform with him on stage.

Remo had earlier said he plans to go to a forest with his family to celebrate his birthday. "It suddenly struck right between my eyes that I am happiest when on the stage," Remo explained his change of plan.

For over a fortnight now the energetic musician has closeted himself at his house in Siolim village busy getting his old friends and band together and rehearsing the numbers for the show.

The show will begin with Till I die, the first song Remo composed at the age of 14, with his first band The Beat 4. In fact, Tony Godinho, the drummer of the band, is flying down from Oman for the show.

He is equally thrilled that The Savages, the Mumbaite band of his college days in architecture, is coming down for the show. Remo played the lead guitar for The Savages. He also cut his first LP record with them.

During his two-and-a-half-year long Europe tour, which he calls the greatest 'school' of life, Remo played with Rock Synergic -- a French rock band -- and even recorded an album with them. The French band or several other European musicians he came across, however, would not be part of the show.

Microwave Papadum, Remo's latest band, will obviously be there, but without Dharma, Victor and Selwyn, the trio he lost in a tragic accident few years ago. With Mukesh, Rocky and Munna, Remo had recently revived the band.

But Remo seems to have left father age long behind. "Being old is the state of mind. I still have to celebrate my 75^th birthday with a rock concert," Remo said.

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