ARRahman….Live in Bangalore…PART1 ..

Oct 8th…The day when music was the “victor” & technology was a mere façade…

It was a wonderful clement evening at the palace grounds in bangalore.I was one among those zealot fans who had gathered in the venue a good 3 hours before the show was scheduled to start. Figured out a rather vantage point in the 500 bucks area & was eagerly waiting for the show to start.I would be pharisaical if I say the event was a “Total Success”. Every venture has its’ own share of bad luck and so was this event also.

But at around 6:30PM the skies opened up with all it’s fury which was relentless for about 40 minutes. The rain dampened the arena, audience but not their verve. The maestro himself was on the stage with an umbrella to reassure the fans that they would witness an amazing show today…Excerpts from his quote “I am sorry. (quite a rare quality these days).These showers are god sent & it will wash away our sins.” The rain took it’s tool on the electronic gadgets stacked. I suppose that even the props were damaged by the rain. It was a valiant effort by the organizing team to get the things back working. The laser device(3D stuff) conked out & many other added attractions were vitiated due to the damp conditions. As the fans were urging for an early start …shivamani propitiated us with a teaser of a performance as the stage was being arranged for the show, invigorating the fans to a great extent.

At around 8:45 pm the show finally kicked off & to tell the truth it was worth the wait. ARR started with his very own number “FANAA” to get the crowd interested. The tempo was set for the evening with his song. The first two songs for the evening were not of that great sound quality as the equalizers were still coarse & were being fine tuned with evry song that was rendered.
Once the show started it was a virtual treat for the music lovers. ARR made some astute selection of songs to be rendered in accordance to the taste of the crowd which was a master stroke.

The guys in the back rows(like me!!) had a sudden windfall when the organizers allowed the people from the overflowing back rows fill up the more costlier front rows. We felt that we got more than our money worth. I was standing barely 400m from the proscenium.(Just then a platonic thought crossed my mind. ”Music transcends all divisions like class, creed.. well well..i get a bit philosophical at times..It is that P “thing you know…).In a pragmatic sense I should say “I got Lucky”.