Awesome ! Thanks for sharing it..Hope all you guys had a great
time..Now..Waiting for the Pics..
Thanks again for your reports..
Lakki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
(sorry long mail. Some interesting tidbits towards the end)
Exhilarating experience, as expected. All this waiting didn't go wasted.
Concert started on the dot at 8.30 pm (10 pm IST) and ended at 12. Three and a
half hours of sheer bliss!
Fans
A few of us met up at the concert: Fameeb and friends; Mehroof; Riyaz;
Aravind; Vishnu and friend; Sreejith and sister; Sunil; myself. Was also in
touch through the concert with Ganesh; Siad; Sunder; and later Anand. (Sanjay
would have texted you if you had posted your number earlier.) Was wonderful
getting to meet you all; we have a good number of people now; lets try and keep
the spirit alive..
Concert
The professionalism was evident through out and also the hard work that would
have gone in to stick to the timings and the flow to be smooth. The absence of
a Compere didn't seem to bother anyone as there was hardly any gap between the
songs. It showed the amazing team work as everything was going like clock work.
Blaaze came in a few times just for the very essentials like to set the feel at
the beginning and later to introduce the musicians. ARR also did his part to
interact with the audience. He highlighted that this was the 10th anniversary
of his first concert in Dubai and that in itself is a great achievement for a
performer like him. He thanked everyone tremendously at the end for the support
and said mischievously that he hoped to do this again after 5 years the grin
on his face showed that he anticipated the "no, we want sooner, we want more"
shouts..
The organizers also seemed to have done well, though at times they seemed a
bit confused. Except for a few glitches like opening the gates one hour late (6
instead of 5) and slight lack of coordination with Security personnel,
everything seemed set. Snacks, drinks, etc were available and they also printed
out booklets with some of the singers introductions, etc which was useful..
Apart from not having a compere, there are a couple of other differences that
caught my attention in comparison to the previous Dubai concert. First is the
extent to which ARR's live vocals have improved almost to the point of being
totally flawless now! I can only imagine the hours of sadhakam / practice he
would have put in the past years to reach where he's now. Truly amazing!
Second is the absence of dancers for some key danceable songs like Chaiyya
Chaiyya. True to his word (he mentioned this during the press conference), he
has ensured that the focus would in fact be on the singing. For those songs
where dancers were involved, the choreography was good and so were some of the
visual effects. I am however slightly on the fence regarding the solo dancer in
blue for the 'Tere bina' song still trying to figure out if I liked the idea
or not!
Songs
Hindi dominated slightly but there was a good mix of Tamil as well. Karthik
and Benny stood out for their lively and high energy performances. Hariharan
and Blaaze interacted well with the audience. Nithi gave some beautiful
renditions and certainly Chitra, Naresh and the others as well. Our man's
singing was the surprise package of them all excellent vocals and
unbelievable presence on stage. He even took it a step further after the 'humma
humma' song making the audience sing the "humma" part. Soo not him but it was
fun to watch him interacting so nicely with the audience!
Following are the songs sung with time it started and the singers:
08:40 JAGE HAI (Guru) à Chitra, ARR
08.42 KHALBALI (RDB) à ARR
08:48 KADHAL ROJAVE / ROJA JANEMAN (Roja) à Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam
08:53 BARSO RE (Guru) à Neethi Mohan, Mohamed Aslam
08:58 LOSE CONTROL (RDB) à Blaaze, Mohamed Aslam, Naresh Iyer
09:00 3 minutes with the Guitarist (anyone know his name?)
09:03 GIRLFRIEND (Boys) à Karthik, Benny Dayal
09:09 JASHN-E-BAHARA (Jodha Akbar) à Javed Ali
09:15 KANNALANE / KEHANA HE KYA (Bombay) à Chitra, ARR
09:19 KABHI NEEM NEEM / SANDA KOZHI (Yuva/AE) à Madhusree, ARR
09:24 ROOBARU (RDB) à Naresh Iyer, ARR
09:28 JIYA JALE (Dil Se) à Chitra
09:33 DIL SE RE (Dil Se) à ARR
09:36 EDHAYAM / IN LAMHON KE DAMAN (Jodha Akbar) à Karthik, Madhusree, Javed
Ali
09:42 VAAJI VAAJI (Sivaji) à Hariharan, Madhusree
09:48 ATHIRADI(Sivaji) à Karthik, Naresh Iyer, Benny, Synora, Mohd Aslam, ARR
09:55 CHAIYYA CHAIYYA (Dil Se) à Javed Ali, Rahna, Mohd Aslam,
10:02 3 minutes of AZZEM-O-SHAN (Jodha Akbar) intro, changing to o-oh-o-o in
RUKMANI (Roja) and then to a line from VEERAPANDI (Thiruda Thiruda) à ARR,
Mohd, Shivmani
10:05 Shivamani on a roll non-stop for 13 minutes
10:19 Blaaze comes in rapping ORU KUDAI SUNLIGHT (Sivaji) and moves on to
introduce the musicians / technicians involved
10:24 PRAY FOR ME BROTHER (Pray For Me Brother) à ARR
10:31 BOMBAY THEME (Bombay) à Naveen on Flute
10:34 KHWAJA MERE (Jodha Akbar) à ARR, Javed Ali, Mohd Aslam
10:42 AE HAIRATHEY AASHIQUI (Guru) à Hariharan, Sadhana, Mohd Aslam, Dr.
Narayan
10:50 VAARI VAARI (Rising)à Sadhana, Hariharan
10:57 MADURAIKKU POKATHADI (ATM) à Tanvi, Benny Dayal
11:03 MAYYA MAYYA (Guru) à Nithi Mohan, Mohd Aslam
11:10 CHANDA RE / VENNILAVE (Sapnay/Minsara Kanavu) à Hariharan, Sadhana
Sargam
11:16 TERE BINA (Guru) à ARR, Madhusree, Mohd Aslam
11:23 GHANAN GHANAN (Lagaan) à Madhusree, Chitra, Hariharan, Karthik, Singer
in Pagdi
11:28 THOTTAL POO (New) à Synora, Hariharan
11:32 TELEPHONE MANI / DHUN (Indian) à Hariharan
11:37 IK ONKAR (RDB) à Chitra
11:39 RANG DE BASANTI (RDB) à Singer in Pagdi, ARR, Chitra
11:46 SA RE GA ME (Boys) à Tanvi, Rahna, Synora, Mohd Aslam, Blaaze, Naresh,
Benny
11:50 ANDHA ARABIKADALORAM (Bombay) à ARR, Blaaze
11:58 VANDE MATHARAM (Vande Matharam) à ARR
Trivia
Rahman's wife came in by around 7.45 wearing a pretty elegant white khamiz
suit with the children. Couldn't spot his mother. They left before the last
song
It was fun to watch ARR suddenly coming on stage wearing some real dark
coolers during the Athiradi song looking cool. I could see his wife laughing
and waving at him from the audience at this time..
ARR while introducing the song 'Pray For Me' said that he'll sing this for
the rest of his life until there's no poverty in the world and concluded by
asking the audience to keep thinking of the song and change the world..
Hariharan was in his element starting from 'Vaaji' with him mimicking
Rajni's mannerisms; to him trying to make the audience appreciate the singer
wearing Pagdi while he was doing the amazing Aalap during 'Ghanan ghanan'. He
interacted well with the audience and even got them to repeat swaras after him
for around half a minute during another song. He did his usual experimentation
and his own aalaps here and there
The above was just not the case with Sadhana. I still remember very clearly
coming back from the concert 5 yrs ago thinking as to how she is able to sing
so effortlessly she was undoubtedly the best performer for that concert. But
yesterday, not only did she have a few off keys here and there, she repeatedly
forgot lines. It was just not her day.
Madhusree did a good job of the songs she sang and it was fun to listen to
her pronunciation of the Tamil lyrics of Sanda Kozhi
ARR's patience was evident while they were singing 'Khwaja'; the 3 of them
were seated with ARR in the middle playing Harmonium. The mike in front of ARR
kept sliding down due to which he had to keep holding and correcting its
position repeatedly. But all the time, not a single sign of annoyance or anger
on the face in spite to having to do it again and again! But whatever chance he
got to play the harmonica, he did it with his eyes closed and so very absorbed
- was such a joy to watch.
We tried hanging around till 1 pm with the hope of seeing ARR. Vishnu knew
Naresh and was able to convey the message to him that yahoogroup fans are
waiting but unfortunately, ARR had left by then. Thanks a lot to Vishnu for
trying. We were however able to see some of the singers and even congratulate
the Guitarist, etc for their performance.
What a night! I have half a mind to book a ticket and come down to Chennai
for the next one!!
Lakki
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Lakki
Abu Dhabi
U A E
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