Hi Gopal & All,
There was a lady (Guess she said she was the President of the Oakland coucil
or something) who presented ARR with a certificate that declared June 2nd as A
R Rahman day in Oakland. Wanted to add a few other news about the concert.
Participation: Approimately 80 - 85 % of the concert hall was full. The hall
capacity is approx 19,500.
Other Interesting stuff:
1) Sivamani played the drums intensely and at one point (somehow) he
transitioned his rhythm/tempo to the audience and the audience started clapping
response claps exactly matching his tempo. I was really amazaed on how he did
it with such a large crowd.
2) ARR cheered up the crowd to sing Humma with him and just kept on
increasing the tempo of Humma for which the crowd responded perfectly. Even
though he did not sing the lyrics in the two stanzas...it was a new experience
[Only concern was, Humma Humma was one in the extremely very small list of
tamil songs and did not get it to sing in Tamil :( ]
3) As already noted for Pray for me Brother, when everyone showed their
mobile light, it perfectly looked as the whole crowed holding candle
lights...It definitely me feel the experience with goose bumps.
4) Naveen as usual kept on improvising the songs with lot of flute
support...especially playing flute to replace vocal parts of ARR's high pitched
humming on original track of Vandemataram.
Other info requested by few members:
1) Roja Janeman female humming was sung by Sadhana Sargam (Sujatha was not in
the concert)
2) Ramta Jogi and Samajgayi's female singer was Neethi.
3) Vijay Yesudhas, Madhusree & Sadhana were great. Infact Vijay sang Sahana
with great confidence and he could easily reach that pitch (may be the pitch
would have been as the original). But there were no other songs with Vijay as
the main singer.
Missed songs from my earlier email:
Kabhi Neem Neem - Yuva (Madhusree)
Khalbali - RDB (ARR, Aslam, Naresh)
Barso Re - Guru (Neethi)
Thanks to those who helped identify a few other singers like Neethi..she sang
very well matching to the spirit of the original tracks. Has she sung any
original tracks?
Cheers,
Prashanth
Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thanks for the detailed report, Prashanth. Can you elaborate on
Oakland declaring June 2nd as A.R.Rahman Day?
----- Original Message ----
From: Prashanth Isaac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2007 2:35:17 PM
Subject: [arr] SFO concert Report - 1 (June 2, 2007)
Hi Gopal & All,
Just back from the SFO concert. The concert started at 8:20pm with Jaage Hain
from Guru where our Guru started the song on a high pitch and entered the
Stage. Here is the list of songs (not in the order which was played). Others
who attended please correct or add as needed.I did not get a few names when
Blaaze introduced. So some one please fill the "??" below.
Roja Janeman - Roja (Hariharan)
Ramta Jogi - Taal (Sukhvinder &
Samajgayi - Taal
Pray for me Brother
Kehna Hai kya - Bombay (Chitra)
Humma Humma - Bombay (ARR)
Ay Hairathe - Guru (Hariharan/Sadhana)
Jage Hain Guru (ARR/Chitra)
Tere Bina - Guru (ARR/Madhusree)
Mayya Mayya - Guru (???)
Sahana - Sivaji (Vijay Yesudhas/Chitra)
Sega Fighta - Sivaji (Naresh/Blaaze/ ??)
Athiradee - Sivaji (ARR/Sayonara)
Vaaji Vaaji - Sivaji (Hariharan/Madhusre e)
Secret of Success - Boys (Blaaze/??/? ?)
Chanda Re - Sapnay (Hariharan/Sadhana)
Rang de Basanti (??/Chitra)
Pathshala - RDB (Naresh/Blaaze)
Roobaru - RDB (Naresh/ARR)
Ik Onkar - RDB (Chitra)
Ayo Re - Water (Sadhana/Sukhvider)
Piya Ho - Water (Sadhana)
Dil Se Re - Dil Se (ARR)
Chaiyya Chaiyya - Dil Se (Sukhvinder/ Rehana)
Sivamani Beats
Vandemataram (ARR)
Singers and Instrumentalists
Hariharan
Vijay Yesudhas (Sang Udit's version of Sahana)
Chitra
Madhusree
Sadhana Sargam
Blaaze
Naresh Iyer
Sayanora
Rehana
Aslam
??- Male Harmony
?? - Female Harmony
Naveen (Flute)
Rashid - Guitar
Ravi Shankar - Keyboard
?? - Sitar
?? - Cello
?? - Sax
Srinivas Murthy - Conductor
ARRs words during the concert
1) Started by saying that how difficult was to get Visas for his troupe to
travel for the concert.
2) Requested everyone to vote for Taj
3) ARR recently visited Bangalore with his family where he fell sick and said
to the concert organisers that his voice will be nasal. And the organisers said
that nasal voice is the IN thing here.
4) When he began Pray for me...he remembered the poor and hungry people...
Comments:
The concert was great. ARR sang his songs with the power that I did not
expect in a live concert.Though there were a few flaws like the below but that
did not matter for me and I enjoyed the show very much. Hariharan was with his
usual charm and improvisations. Chitra was ultimate not deviating her voice
even a bit from the originals.
1) Sound engineering issues. The balance between instruments were not
correct. For eg. Secret of success was too loud on the guitars and could hardly
hear voices.
2) Mic issues like when ARR starts to sing his voice would sound less and
then after recognizing that the sound engineers would adjust it. It happened
quite a few times in various songs.
3) Timing/Tempo misses by singers like Madhusree in Vaaji, Naresh in
Paathshala.But everything was corrected swiftly.
4) Miss of pitch/scale and quickly corrected in Sahana. (This may have been
due to the over loudness of the pads (not drum pads) of the song which switched
to different notes causing Chitra to slightly move away from the song and
quickly she came to the correct notes)
5) Lyrics unavailability for Humma Humma. ARR sang only "Na..Na ...da...da"
for the two stanzas of the song. Also lyric miss in Athiradee by ARR.
Highlight
June 2nd was declared ARR day in Oakland where the concert happened. As usual
ARR accepted it without commenting on it
Hope others can add and share your experiences
Cheers
Prashanth Isaac
Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED] com> wrote:
Eagerly waiting for the reports...
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