Rahman Rocks Bangalore

In what was Bangalore's biggest excursion in recent times, a little below half a lakh people – diluting the age and their cultural preferences, everyone came for the Jai Ho concert at Jayamahal Road, on May 29th evening.

Figures of disposable earnings looked like they had to be remodeled - tickets were available from Rs. 500 to Rs. 10,000, but that didn't discourage the fans, many of whom were teenagers, to turn up. When Rahman plays live, it is undeniably the nearest that many can get to seeing a Bollywood concert, a Carnatic recital, a Sufi concert, a rock concert, a fusion music concert, or a rap concert.

Frankly, there wasn’t so much of ‘Jai Ho’. In fact, Rahman's latest songs conquered the concert, much like the collection of vocalists, who were largely contemporary. A few of his all time regulars were also there plugged into Keith Peters on the guitar, Sivamani on the drums and Naveen on the flute.

Subsequently, more of the Western-inspired songs and less of the quintessentially Indian songs were played. For example, Lagaan songs were totally omitted. The playlist majorly consisted of Delhi 6, Blaaze's rap, and to the glee of many, Slumdog. But what drove the crowd into ecstasies was ‘Koncham Nilavu’ (‘Koncham Nippu’ from Donga Donga), ‘Pudhu Vellai’ (the Tamil version of ‘Paruvam Vaanaga’ from Roja) ‘Kannanule’ (Bombay) and ‘Snehituda’ (Sakhi).


Shweta Pandit went all out when she belted out ‘Mangta Hai Kya’ from Rangeela as did Vijay Prakash with ‘Pudhu Vellai’ and ‘O Cheliya’.

A lot of Rahman's top work lies in his latest Sufi songs – ‘Khwaja Mere Khwaja’ (Jodhaa Akbar) and ‘Arziyan’ (Delhi 6) - and when they were performed in the way of a traditional recitation, it added to the admiration of the old people in the audience, which they soon lost out on as they started to belt out numbers like ‘Fiqrana’ (Blue), ‘Khalbali’ (Rang De Basanti), ‘Jana Gana Mana’ (Yuva), ‘Taxi Taxi’ (Sakkarakatti) and Blaaze's rap.

Sufi certainly supplemented to the insightfulness of the concert, but there were 2 sobering videos that amplified it - a tribute to YSR, and Vellai Pookal (a heart-stopping melody fromKannathil Muthamittal, Amrutha in Telugu).

Rashid Ali and Javed Ali flipped in with some Bollywood romantic numbers like ‘Kabhi Kabhi Aditi’ and ‘Jashn-e-Bahaara’, respectively. Sadhana Sargam's ‘Snehituda’ has become a regular number at Rahman’s concerts, and she showed as much passion as Rahman did when he sang the superhit ‘Mustafa Mustafa’.

Neeti Mohan, Blaaze, Shweta Pandit and Benny Dayal let their hair down in their performer avatars. The team on stage cavorted with some fusion music as well, with the guitar, the flute, the piano (played by the genius himself) and the sitar. And we can't end this without talking about Sivamani, whose variety of percussion instruments made his stage charisma a trend all by itself!