I wonder why they call themselves `The Wandering Souls'? For someone so close to perfection, they may actually be very near their goals! :-) This is just a small report in appreciation of the TWS `Rahmania' concert held in Pune last week.
Saturday, 10 Feb, 10 pm, it was amazing to see such a huge excited crowd clutching their Rs. 100+ tickets and waiting to enter the auditorium to watch the concert. The concert began with a bang with a short introductory piece of `Oruvan Oruvan Mudulali' (Muthu?), sadly that was the only Tamil element in the whole of the concert. Each song was introduced with a small anecdote or story or incident which was highly enlightening. For example, not many would have known about a song ARR helped his father compose when he was just 7! On the whole, the singers did an excellent job, and it was fascinating to see originally multi multi-track `ARR' compositions being rendered very close to perfection by a live orchestra consisting of just 3 keyboards, 1 Flute, 1 set of Drums, 1 Dholak, 1 Tabla, I think that's it. The nuances and mostly hidden and ignored aspects were well brought out, for example there was this tall guy in greenish lemon colored shirt in one corner who joined for chorus and sang in a different pitch, something that is easily skipped not only while rendering, but also while listening to ARR compositions. Songs kept on coming with one after another, for 3 hours and one was at a loss of words at the marvel this group was displaying. There were a few misses too, for example the bass guitar, of so much importance in ARR compositions was barely audible, in the song Snehidane (Chupke Se), the off-beat beats that occur during Sultan Khan's piece could not be heard, Roobaroo would have sounded better without an electric guitar. But a group performing within the limits of the available equipment and sound system and with members performing live and having only 2 hands each could only do as much I guess, no complaints. There were `Once more' requests from the cheerful crowd at multiple occasions which the group had to concede to, for popular and fast tracks like `Loose Control', `O Hundum Suniyo Re (Saathiya)' etc. I wonder what would have happened to the crowd had they been treated to something like `Secret of Success (Boys)'. Also in the wish-list is the Chinese redention of the 'Warriors of Heaven and Earth' song, for which the group can probably catch one of the Chinese students studying in Pune. The group certainly has a great responsibility of introducing the non-tamil public to ARRs genius which has been so far been hidden from them, hopefully they will be able to accomplish this in the near future. I am already waiting for their next concert. Best Regards, Archit Pune --- In [email protected], "Dinesh Vaidya" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > When THE WANDERING SOULS invited our GURUji, A R Rahman, to attend > the programmes in Pune, this is what he replied to us in his > usual "short and meaningful" way........... > > "Good luck to the guys Hope they retain the SOUL of the music God > Bless !". > .......
