All my status messages on all public forums i am a part of read 'All those in Kolkata who did not attend the A.R. Rehman concert deserve to die'. I shall justify why now.
1. A.R. Rehman was performing live in Kolkata. Had there been no one else and had he come onstage for 15 mins and performed three tracks with loops playing behind him it would have been worthwhile just to get to see the man.
2. The atmosphere was electric. Kolkata's renowned fanatiscism has it's vices agreed(remember the Maradona incident?) But on this night the 70,000 odd Kolkatans at the venue created an air of such enthusiasm and excitement that just being among the crowd was an experience in itself.
3. This one is for all the bass players.Keith Peters was on bass. KEITH PETERS!!!!
4.The sound balancing blew me right off my feet. Not being rich, I could afford only 300 bucks tickets. That meant I was half a kilometer away from the stage. I was apprehensive about the sound. I needn't have worried. In a place like the Salt Lake Stadium, the reverb kills. Trust me, you think Nazrul Mancha is bad. This place is the king of bad reverbs. Yet the balancing was inch perfect. Not too loud. Perfect clarity even at a half kilometer distance. They had to balance at least 300 instruments(another thing I shall gush about shortly). They had to make sure that the speakers were angled correctly, that reflection was at a bare minimum, that the pitch was preserved. They had to equalize to a pin point precision. They had a radius of at least half a kilometer over an angle of 180 degrees over which they had to deliver this sound. I dont know how, but they got all this right.
5. The songs performed and the music production. We've ALL heard Rehman saab. We all know how utterly intricate his arrangements are, what a wide variety of instruments he uses andhow deep his melodies run. Performing that same production live, let me tell you from my limited experience my friends is no mean feat. And they did just that.All the instruments (over a hundred different ones at least) were clearly audible. Hell Sivamani himself used around 50, including a salad cutter that he played with two coins. Rehman played a grand piano for chrissake. The instruments were weaving in and out, were heard exactly when they were supposed to be and the lines were played perfectly. This in itself is a spectacle worth spending money on.
6. The choreography is not something I can comment on because I know so little about. But all I can say is that I loved it. They way they wove song and dance together to create the perfect harmony of audio and visual appeal was overwhelming. The costumes, the dance steps were all synchronized with the song so beautifully. and imagine the pressure on the musicians! You loose the tempo, not only do you jeopardize the song, you jeopardize the dancers. Says something huh?
7. The overall visual appeal. The lights, the pyrotechnics, MY GOD!!IF ever there was a complete performance, this would be it. There were flame burners in the front of the stage which would go off now and again. During the last song at least 20 brilliant crackers went off. The decoration of the stage was changing for every song and setting the mood for it. During the Qawalli set, the stage was completely transformed into a setting perfectly suited for the songs. This completely changed later during Hamma Hamma or Pappu Can't Dance. Visually, the gig was just out of this world.
8. You probably have read about the star studded cast that accompanied Rehman including Hariharan, Shweta Pandit, Javed Ali etc etc. If that was not good enough you had Sivamani playing percussions, Keith Peters playing bass, two mean guitar players(one of whom I thought was Neil Mukherjee, but i was mistaken). Also Usha Uthup doing Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na was just fabulous. The entire stadium was singing along. On top of that was the song list. Rehman's songs. Where do you start from and where do you end. Roja, Dil Se, Bombay, Rangeela. More recently Delhi 6, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, RDB. Each a classic in its own right. Jazz, blues, quawalli, ballads, you name it, he's composed it. And they played it. For four hours non stop.Unadulterated music.
I could literally go on and on. I will as a matter of fact. For the next month and a half, i will gush and gush some more about this. And there is nothing you can do to stop me. Absolutely nothing.
