February 9, 2008 was a red-letter day for the 7000-plus crowd that converged on YMCA grounds, Nandanam, Chennai. The lucky ones got a chance to see the Mozart of Madras deliver a thrilling, rollicking performance. A.R. Rahmanwas simply mesmerising in his first concert this year.
The event, held by the Marg Group, was a private celebration of the company’s achievements. The construction firm had decided to celebrate in a unique way by bringing in the maestro to do a live concert. Rahman was also the chief guest for the show. The evening started out with the traditional lighting of the kuthuvilakku by the CMD of the Marg Group and his wife.
A short audio-video presentation on the company followed, after which it was Rahman all the way. Rahman began his concert with Chennai’s famed guitarist ‘Guitar’ Prasanna starting off with a fusion medley of classical and western. He was accompanied by Kieth Peters, the bass guitarist from Rahman’s troupe.
Rahman made his grand entrance with the inspirational 'Jaage Hain' from Guru. Alongwith Chitra’s mellifluous voice, Rahman had the crowd going ballistic. The ecstatic crowd could not have asked for more as Rahman provided them with an eclectic mix of his soothing and rocking numbers from Tamil, Hindi and Telugu.
Singers Hariharan, Chitra, Chinmayee, Naresh Iyer, Ujaynee, Aslam, rapper Blazee, Benny Dayal (of ‘Maduraiku Pagadhadee’ fame), Raihana and Tanvi along with percussionist Sivamani and flautist Naveen were in their best form, regaling the audience with their energetic performances.
True to his style, Rahman surprised the audience with a special unplugged session where one got to hear Hariharan, Chitra and Chinmayee singing accompanied only with Rahman on the piano.
One also got a chance to hear Rahmaan’s latest hit ‘Mahrabaa’ from Jodhaa Akbar. It was indeed a remarkable achievement that Rahman fused this percussion-heavy number with his similarly structured numbers, ‘Rukkumani’ from Roja and ‘Veerapandi Kotaiyile’ from Thiruda Thiruda.
As the concert came to an end, one could see that the audience were still asking for more which shows how mind-blowing the concert was. The ‘Isai Puyal’ did definitely rock.
