As I sit here, recuperating from a bad viral fever, I thought I should record the memorable event that happened on Oct 11, 2009. I had one of my life time wishes come to fruition. I attended the A.R.Rahman concert in Chennai. Yeayyyyyy!!!
Let me recollect *some* of the moments in it.
As we waited patiently for the show to begin and the Reddys to wrap up their promos for their site, we could hear AR speaking in the background, and suddenly he emerged from a case that moved from below the stage onto it singing Jaage Hai... Standing ovation followed... He went on to sing Khalbali, ably supported by Shivamani moving to the foreground. The closest view of AR I could get was when he moved above the crowd in the crane, singing Jiya se Jiya, which was thundering!
The improvised version of Mausam and Escape, (Ar in the piano, Azad in the sitar and Sanjeev in the guitar) was out of the world. As the sitar started playing out a different tune with piano chords in the background, it beautifully wove itself into the M&E track and when the rock guitar joined in, it was totally out of the world.
The entire section with AR in the piano was worth the whole show. Especially, when Hariharan sang the Tamizha Tamizha, suddenly AR stood up and started doing something different. He actually started playing the continuum keyboard and belted out Ishwar Janato out of nowhere and it blended so well with the mood that it was heavenly. I had tears :)
There was this girl, Lush, a rapper, who could dance like a lightning and still continue singing. She rocked. Suzanne's energy was mind blowing as well. This is the first time I am seeing her and in spite of her heavier frame, she had so much energy that she could literally pull the entire crowd to its feet. Neeti Mohan also amazed me with her singing and simultaneous dancing. She could effortlessly reach the higher scales in spite of the heavy dancing :)
The Visual effects was top notch in the show. Blaaze truly is a great showman. He could pull the crowd up whenever he wanted. So is Benny. Rashid Ali showed his western singing. Javed Ali impressed me big time. He is such a perfectionist. He could deliver the songs just as they are on record and belt out beautiful improvisations. The Khwaja and Maula he and AR gave in the sufi section of the concert shall remain in my memory for a very long time to come.
When AR came for Rehna Tu, he said how much that song mattered to him and how that song is a dedication to accept a person simply the way the person is. When he said that, the sincerity with which he spoke those words cannot be missed and just observing that sincerity was elevating. Hats off sir!
There were much more moments that can be recorded, Chitra's renditions, Sadhana and Hariharan's versatality, the extremely awesome Delhi 6 rendition by the crew (Benny, Tanvi, Blaze), the Taxi taxi number (Vivianne, Benny, Blaze), Mustafa, Humma Humma, Jai Ho, AzeemoShan medley, Style, Athiradi (it really was an athiradi), special RAP bits added to Chandralekha, sweet improvisations by Naveen on the flute and so on....
It was a great show and I loved it to the core. One more of my Karma is down now :D
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