Concerts in Contrast
About the Sonu Nigam concert in 2006, comparing it to the Tull concert
Background: This came out in 09 Jul 2006 after I had attended a Sonu Nigam concert and I tied up the Shanmukhananda Hall experience with the one I had during the Jethro Tull concert a few months earlier.
The original link is here. The Mumbai Mirror link is not seen.
These are the earlier two pieces about the Tull concert in Shanmukhananda.
Bhavin Jankharia
Bhavin Jankharia
Here is the text of what I had written.
Last Sunday, despite my protests, I accompanied my family to a Sonu Nigam concert, a the Shanmukhananda Hall. Honestly, if it wasn’t the fact that the hall is a four-minutes walk from my house, I doubt if I would have gone. Let’s face it; no parking facilities, a screwed up approach road and a concert by a singer whose only song I really know is “Har Ghadi” from “KHNH”…the deal didn’t seem all that great. And with my past experience with “Musical Nights” and “Voice of Mukesh” and “Voice of falana dhikna”, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic.
And things didn’t get better. It rained heavily during our short walk to the auditorium. Then, the musicians had gotten late, so until they were ready with their instruments, we were made to wait out in the hot and humid foyer…which wasn’t so bad in retrospect, since I got to meet quite a few of my professional colleagues. Then the show started an hour late, because everyone was waiting…as we all do all the time.
Anyway, finally, after some felicitations, a forgettable opening act by an upcoming female singer, but a nice ensemble rendering by his musicians, Mr. Nigam came on stage.
And all I can say is that I am glad I was there.
Mr. Nigam is a consummate entertainer. He has a great voice and is supremely confident of his ability to handle it. He also has a great self-deprecating manner and is not above making fun of himself and last Sunday he used all these abilities to the hilt. He bantered with the audience, kept drawing them in and his words of “wisdom” to the crying infant at the very beginning of the show, made all us warm to him immediately. It was fun seeing an “Indian” singer entertaining the audience, in a manner more reminiscent of rock stars rather than the sedate “Hindi” singers of yore.
Just as Ian Anderson had done in February during the Tull concert. Having grown up with Tull and having missed his previous concerts in Mumbai, I had made sure that I had the time and tickets to be there on the second day, at Shanmukhananda Hall. Again, everything started late, and the opening act by Alms for Shanti was a bit of “pseudo – sopho” patchwork, but once Mr. Anderson was on stage, it was a different story. He held his audience by the palm of his hands. And though he couldn’t really hit the high notes and the music at times felt desultory, it didn’t matter. It was good fun.
I wish I was a classical music aficionado, because then Shanmukhananda Hall would have met my “live performance” needs with ease. Unfortunately, though in my distant “thelawala” past I tried to “understand” classical music, all that ever happened was that I woke up at the end…refreshed and ready to go home.
Hopefully though, we should see the Hall being used for more “popular” entertainment, so that when it rains and the entire city is flooded and you are stuck at home, you can go someplace else apart from Aurora and watch something else than Krrish, though in all fairness, watching Krrish wasn’t a bad use of 2 ½ hours last Monday evening.
Considering though, that even if Shanmukhananda Hall had something, there would have been no way of reaching it, through all that water that always collects around it during the rains.
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