This is exactly what ARR told us (his fans :-)) when he was performing live in Rajouri Gardens yesterday in Delhi, when some of his (senseless) fans were recording his performance, inspite of strict restrictions imposed on recording the performance. These rules were printed on the tickets that were sold out to more than 5000+ crowd cheering ARR in the cold evening of 17th November, 2007. He very subtlely told people, "Hey this is not fair, you guys will record and upload it on Youtube! A channel is doing complete coverage of this video, so please don't do this". Most of the front seaters stopped recording, however, most dint.
What an evening it was, to see AR Rahman live, it was like a dream come true for me. After the quick travel in Metro, we reached 10 minutes late to the venue. I could hear Hariharan and Sadhana Sargam, singing Roja Janeman...I wanted to go flying to my seat, but couldn't! As soon as I went in, I saw a huge grand stage with A R Rahman written on it and I was totally amused! Then I hunted for A R R and there he was, with the Synth, in a white Sherwani! I was completely in awe! There was Hariharan on stage performing, my favorite singer and it was simply great to watch such great people on stage and hear them perform so flawlessly! Hariharan sang Vaaji Vaaji with Madhushree. Madhushree sang Vaaji Vaaji with the chorus part having hindi lyrics, whereas Hariharan stuck to complete tamil. Madhushree also sang Kabhi Neem Neem very beautifully, and very effortlessly, and ARR's interludes were splendid, I was screaming like never before when he started to sing! It was complete hysteria with the masses when he sang Dil Se Re..., Humma Humma (in tamil), Dum Dara Dum Dara from Guru (I fell in love with ARR when he sang this with Chinmayi). The surprise song was Thee Thee from Sivaji! I was totally high listening to him sing, and I was singing along with him, only to have really shocked sardarjis turning around and giving me really funny looks as to who is this singing in Greek/Latin with ARR! North Indians have no clue about any of the South Indian languages - any South Indian is a Madrasi in the North and any South Indian language is Tamil for them! (pronounced as Taaaaamil, here! :-)) But that dint stop me, I was cheering away to glory, throughout. ARR's second outfit, a dark purple kurta was very good and simple. He was composed and pleasing on stage, always had a smile. The highpoint of the show was when ARR sang Jodha-Akbar's Marhaba Marhaba! It was mindblowing!!! The twist to this was, he ended Marhaba with O oooo from Rukkumani Rukkumani and then jumped to Veerapandi Kottayile! and ended the fusion there! Was very interesting! Then came Hariharan, who enthralled all of us with Yunhi Chala Chal along with Kailash Kher (who went gaga about Delhi, since he hails from the North!...well...:-)) Hariharan also sang Chanda Re with Sadhna Sargam, Tu Hi Re with Chitra - extremely well, unbelievably well I must say! Then there was a classical zapper with HH, Chitra, SS and another singer (who sings and even resembles Sukhvinder Singh, I dont know his name) - Ghanan Ghanan from Lagaan, they sang the song in style, with lots of harkat in raag Malhar, and switching to Ghanan Ghanan, it was a treat to listen to them! HH sang Bharat Mujhko Jaan Se Pyara Hain from Roja and also the melodious Aye Haiyrathe Aashiqui with Sadhna Sargam. Sadhna Sargam performed her Chupke Se from Saathiya, and Chitra sang Kehna Hi Kya extremely well! Not to forget the spark of the night, Naresh Iyer with his Roobaroo and Paathshaala, driving the Delhi audience crazy! Chitra sang Ik Onkar followed by Thodi si dhool meri (the Rang De Basanti title track) along with the singer I dint know...:-( If anybody happens to watch this show on any channel, pls let me know his name. However, what took me by surprise was this singer from Aasma (the pop band of Channel V), Neeti who sang Barso Re, Maiya Maiya, Chandralekha - along with Tanvi, and Ni Main Samajh Gayi (Taal) and she sang very well, she had a very good stage presence. Also, Rehana sang the song Chhaiya Chhaiya, female part - very well. There was an additional treat waiting for us, Shauk Hain from Guru, by Soumya Rao. ARR announced to the audience that unfortunately this song was not included in the audio CD but was in the movie, so Soumya performed the song and it was very good.
ARR's Pray for me brother and Vandemataram were superb! Shivamani's percussion was awesome and stylish.
On the whole, the concert was GREAT! The climax is still not over! We knew that we missed the last Metro and took an auto to get back home, and we just started moving and there was this cop who was stopping our auto and just in front of us, we saw a huge long white taxi, a BMW and ARR sitting alone in the back seat!!! We screamed!!! We tortured the auto driver to follow the car just to catch another glimpse, and in the rush, a fat sardarjji had to fall in front of our auto and block our way! We were so ruthlessly enticed with the BMW that we asked the auto driver to still follow the car just to get another glimpse of ARR, but the car took the other route :-( We had to go the other way....Sigh....
However, it was and is and will always be a memorable experience, all my life! Three cheers to ARR and his fantastic music. Check out Chinmayi's blog, for a review about the concert, from the horse's mouth! :-) http://chinmayisripada.blogspot.com/ Just figured from Chinmayi's post that the unknown singer's name is Aslam Khan. I am wondering why Chinmayi does not mention about the singer, Neeti from Aasma...:-) Anyways, you can get info about Neeti at: http://in.news.yahoo.com/071115/32/6naqj.html
|
