It cannot get better than this for me…. Shreya Ghoshal live in concert in September and Sonu Nigam live in concert in October. However, on the flip side there was a decent audience at the latter and a crazy audience at the former. It would have been brilliant the other way round…
It was actually the second time I attended a concert by Sonu, the first one being an anti-climax, due to the fact that the concert could not be continued beyond 10 PM at the Kanteerava Stadium , due to the Mallya Hospital in the vicinity and the concert only began at 9.30 PM.This was in February 2007 and finally after 2 years I got another opportunity to listen to this brilliant performer…
At the jam packed Palace Grounds, it was a déjà vu with the concert beginning 90 minutes late. I had been to a Shankar Mahadevan concert at the same venue exactly an year back and had vivid memories of dancing to his tunes in a steady drizzle. So the expectations were supremely high……(although I still have a Rahman and Sivamani concert to be attended !! )
Sonu entered with a trademark alaap of his and the very own “Palko ke leke saaye…” And the rest was to follow….. Dil Dooba, Falak Dekhoon, Chak de Saare Gham, Tu Jahan Main wahan, Sooraj Hua Madham, Soniyo, Tumko Paaya hai,…..to name a few. He also went on to sing “Don’t say alvida”, a fantastic rendition from a yet to be released movie.
As if this wasn’t enough, there were the following standouts :
1. He explained how a song gets composed, with the help of Lyrics that goes - “Aloo Bhindi Gajar Matar Paneer”….and merged the tune with “Nachle Ve” … it was such fantastic transition from a fancy song to an actual movie song.
2. The best rendition was of the song “ Phir milenge chalte chalte” from “Rab Ne Bana Di jodi”. Here he actually sang the songs out of which the lyrics were made of , making it into a 15 minute song almost !!! This included “Mere Sapno ki rani”, “Aaja Aaja Main hoon pyar tera”…
3. 4 Kannada songs - “Mungaaru Male”, “Anisutide”, “Ninnindale”, “Neene Bari neene”….with the promise of a ALL KANNADA SHOW next time in Bangalore
4. “Chiggy Wiggy” which included Kylie Minogue’s lines in a female pitch and “I’m the one” by Michael Jackson. “Let’s celebrate his life” said Sonu.
5. Finally my all time favourite Hindi song to end the show… “Kal Ho Naa Ho”, which ended as a rock version….
Due to time constraints once again, the show was snapped when he was actually warming up for lots more…. But nonetheless it was a memorable evening….
The effortless ease with which he switched songs for 2 hours without a break, the maverick energy he had, the improvisations with each of his songs along with witty humour in between, his interactions with the crowd, his maturity of singing…. simply left me flabbergasted.
Thanks Sonu …
By the way : Another Sonu Nigam Chartbuster on the offing.. “Shukran Allah” from the movie Kurbaan…
