I got to hear Rahman perform live for the first time yesterday on the grounds of a near-packed Salt Lake stadium; the audience spread over the grounds and the galleries to add up to something close to a lakh!, if the organizer's live announcement figures were anything precise.
To be honest, my whole experience was rather a mixed one- a good part of the show was a real disappointment, as i also realized how outdated i was in keeping up with his latest trends- almost every other track was unfamiliar to me! To top it off, there was a clear shift towards western music- and experiments with rap, hip-hop, and remixes were being done rampantly- once even extending to a song as classic as the "Chaiyan Chaiyan"! (this one was even attempted without a male voice around!) There was also a string of performances that were sung by robot-like, metallic-sounding voices- the lyrics, though sounded hindi, were indecipherable for the most part. And then, there was a band of foreign artists, who had come "all the way from France/US..."- who, to my untrained ears, sounded amazingly fluent in rap genre- and i waited patiently for my kind of music to return, as they all rapped, hip-hopped, funkied and danced away to glory. :)
For the kind of Rahman music that i do have a ear and an appreciation for, my biggest personal disappointment was "Dil Se Re"- perhaps the one on which i had pitched my greatest hopes on! For anyone who has loved this song just for the intense passion, the hopeless desperation, and the sheer power that only Rahman at his best form could put into it- almost capable of waking up a dead man from the morgue! or, moving a pyramid around!- would have found precisely all of that lacking in his performance last night. And all the flames set up on the stage- all real fire, precisely-timed to shoot up at the high moments- could not make up for this lack of burning passion and energy. Even the flow of the song was broken quite a few times.
My second big disappointment was with the sufi genre- maybe just because this was again something i had real high hopes on! Though the ambience seemed quite perfect and serene for a spiritual takeoff- the audience got composed for what this genre needed most, as the stage lights dimmed and turned to the pure, soothing, serene green that symbolizes sufism; and Rahman & team, heads covered with white cloth, seated themselves on the stage floor with harmoniums- the performance itself failed to mesmerize a live- living, breathing- audience; coming nowhere close to drawing out your soul, nowhere close to uniting with the divine and inspiring the kind of trance that Sufi music/singers are so well known for. The performance was limited to "Khwaja Mere Khwaja" and "Arziyan/Maula Maula", the latter surely being the better of the two performances by a good measure- and i really missed "Piya Haji Ali" here.
And now for the really good pieces of the show :)- though you could see Rahman play almost every role with equal readiness; from lead singer to just lending his voice for a small vocal-piece, to accompanying the singer on stage by playing on his casio-keyboard hanging around his neck in a guitar-like style, Rahman was perhaps at his best when he took charge of his piano, and came up with a beautiful musical composition with Sitarist Asad Khan (he played marvellously well!)- it was not a jugalbandi; in fact Rahman played down his own performance, letting the Sitar overshadow the piano completely; before a whole band of musicians joined them into a strong chorus in the build-up to a powerful climax, only to recede away from there to let the duo perform alone again, just as the music moved from subtle to very powerful and back to subtle again. There were individual performances by other musicians too- a powerful drumming piece by Sivamani sounded really good too.
Hariharan was good as usual (have heard him live before)- and shared a very good rapport with Rahman. As Rahman accompanied him on his piano, his rendition of just the first para of "Dheemi Dheemi" before breaking off to "Tu Hi Re" was truly soulful, refreshing and soft! (wished he could sing that fully!) His rendition of "Nahin Saamne", though, could have been a bit more softer and closer to the original version, as suits his style and voice better. Missed his "Sun Ri Sakhi" too. His best moment probably came with his little experiments with sargams as he tried to make the audience sing "Raag Yaman" with him (with his claim that every Calcuttan can sing!), before moving on to merging all the pieces of the puzzle so meaningfully and seamlessly into what turned out to be "Aye Hairathe"! :)
The 4 hour-long show- coordinated with the utmost professionalism, without any glitches/delays whatsoever affecting the show's smooth execution- closed well with "Jai Ho" and "Vande Mataram", as expected- and you got to witness Diwali for the second time this year :), with fireworks going off one after the other in quick succession right above the stage. By this time, the audience had got really charged up- and you could sense an air of madness and danger around you. People on all the galleries had lit up fires by burning newspapers on a large scale, while people on the grounds climbed up on their chairs to dance and to cheer. This is when you understood what Rahman had meant by his words- "Even if i sneeze, Calcutta claps". :)