The concert was wonderful! Of course, it was scheduled over the Memorial Day weekend and then it got postponed to yesterday. We reached the venue on time but it didn’t begin until 9 pm i.e. an hour later! Philips Arena has a capacity of 17,000 but there were not more than 2500 people in there – Rehman came in at 9 and thanked everyone for making it to the event especially since the concert was postponed. There was a huge gang from Greater Atlanta Tamil Sangam and they made repeated requests for songs from Rajnikant’s latest starrer, Sivaji. I hadn’t heard any song from this movie but then the singers started singing those songs – were the songs cool or what!!! Hip-hop rhythms, Tamil rap, unconventional voices – the Rehman works. I love this guy’s music – HOW does he conceptualize all this in his head? Here’s someone who composed music as techno-based as Thiruda Thiruda and yet he has the music of 1947 – Earth, Lagaan and Yuva to his credit – Music that is heavy on melody and does not rely on any techno, trance or such beats.
One of the poignant moments for me was, when he started singing Damdar Damdar Mast Mast Dam Damdar Damdar Mast Mast, Dam Damdar Damdar, O Hamdam Bin Tere Kya Jeena… and I suddenly thought of Guruji. I felt so touched, so grateful that tears started flowing down my cheeks – Life without Him is so inconcievable now.
Rehman ended with Vande Mataram – Maa Tujhe Salaam – a fitting end indeed and all of us sang ourselves hoarse at that point.
shashwati says:
Rehman rocks, indeed! 🙂
June 24, 2007 — 10:38 pm
Lakshmi says:
Absolutely does.
June 26, 2007 — 5:58 pm
jayasankarvs says:
Maa Tujhe Salaam was his last song in his Bangalore concert too. It was raining heavily. We too cried ourselves hoarse.
June 25, 2007 — 3:22 am
Lakshmi says:
Hmm, sounds wonderful!
June 26, 2007 — 5:58 pm
arunshanbhag says:
Sounds like you had a fabulous experience. Will check to see if he is visiting us here.
June 25, 2007 — 3:51 am
Lakshmi says:
Atlanta was the last leg of his US tour, sorry!
June 26, 2007 — 5:57 pm
mrsgollum says:
rahman rocks..and he sure must have. they had the concert in the news here:)
June 25, 2007 — 6:38 am
Lakshmi says:
Cool – he has composed so many amazing tracks – I guess you can always wish there were other songs that he’d played/performed… 🙂 I have so many more on my wish list!
June 26, 2007 — 5:58 pm
lalunadiosa says:
Sounds like a truly magical experience. Some of my friends went down to NJ to see him and they enjoyed the concert too. Now I wish I had gone with them too.
June 27, 2007 — 12:12 am