I just came back from the 'Tribute to A R Rahman' show at the Stanford Pan Asian Music Festival.
I finally got meet our boss up close :-) A long time desire got fulfilled today. I am all smiling here. I will be posting quite a few pictures of tonight's tribute show, soon. Excerpts from the show: - It was not a performance, it was more of a tribute to him. There was some audio-visuals, followed by his interview on stage and then a QA session for the audience. - The hall was jam packed and the aisles were literally overflowing (as expected) - Before the show started, I managed to sneak up to him(he was sitting in the first row all by himself!) and introduced myself. He smiled. And then I told him that I was part of the yahoogroup and there was an instant look of recognition on his face followed by a big smile. Felt nice that our yahoogroup's mention catches ARR's attention in this way. - The interview session was filled with generic, oft-repeated questions which ARR answered quite well. Most of his answers were humorous and he constantly had the audience laughing out loud. (Hmmm... this is a new ARR indeed..) - Interesting titbit that he mentioned: Manirathnam initially told ARR the story of Saathiya (Alaipayuthe); the love story that starts on a train. ARR composed 'Chayya Chayya' for that initial meeting of the hero-heroine on the train it seems. Then all of a sudden Manirathnam started working on Dil Se and used that song for that movie instead :-) - A nice titbit for our group. ARR, while responding to a question, mentioned that he was going through our yahoogroup's messages and read that 7 or 8 of the songs in Rang De Basanti were in the top ten. Yayyyy! So ARR does read our messages. This is GREAT news indeed :-)(I think it was Dinesh who posted that particular message, dude, I think I made your day :-) ) - He mentioned 3 or 4 times that his current favorite song(of his own creation) is 'Luka Chuppi' from RDB. - He confirmed the news that he would be doing Manirathnam's next movie - Guru. He also mentioned that work on the movie 'Buddha' is in progress. Upon asking him about him working on Mahabharata and the Sholay-remake, he said he did not know about that, and that it was news to him:-) - The stanford students rendered a few of his songs. I was watching ARR's reaction. He was extremely pleased with the way they performed. So, kudos to the standford students, you made the Boss take notice :-) - After the show I hung around and asked a couple of questions. One was about the Bharathiyar songs album he was supposed to be doing. He was confused for a moment, then he remembered and replied that Bharat Bala was supposed to be making a movie and when he starts working on that, this album would happen. Lets hope that this project takes off soon. - Upon asking when he was going to give a performance in the US, he mentioned that he will be coming to San Francisco (Cow Palace) sometime in June or July of this year it seems. So, that is another piece of great news for fans in the Bay Area. Well folks, thats the gist of what happened tonight. Feels nice to share my experience with you all. I will be posting pictures of the show soon, so look out for that. regards, Om Explore, Experience, Enjoy A.R.Rahman - The Man, The Music, The Magic. Only at arrahmanfans.com - The definitive A.R.Rahman e-community. Homepage: http://www.arrahmanfans.com Admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] BGM fest and Potters contest From arsaregama Log on to http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/arsaregama Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arrahmanfans/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
