The concert was incredibly sophisticated and more entertainment than pure music. It reminded me of a Cirque-du-Soleil type show. A combination of lights, on screen projection of images, slick choreography and accompanying singers who knew the dance moves and had been clearly been chosen for screen presence over voice quality (with perhaps Hariharan as an exception) made the show a visual spectacle.
These ladies could not match Shreya Ghoshal and her singing of the original, but no one can deny that they ARE lookers and performers, and blended a stage choreographed persona with live singing very well!
An extension of the stage brought these performers very close to the viewers so audience participation was amazing. One song that did this more than any other was the Rang De Basanti theme song:
There were acrobats and contortionists on stage, people dangling from the soaring ceiling of the Arena and climbing and descending from ropes attached to the ceiling!
The “selling” of the product was nowhere more evident that in this version of Urvashi Urvashi where Rahman crooned the opening lines and left the stage to a motley crew who rapped in dreads and dark glasses with girls in short skirts and stars and stripes hot pants!
There was one magical musical interlude when everyone gathered, and lead by Hariharan, sang a medley of (mostly) Rahman compositions. I recall Kandukondain Kandukondain, Rehan Tu, Ishq Ishq, and Sasural Genda Phool in this. But even Genda Phool was a watered down version without Rekha’s rustic voice uplifting this birha.
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Saw some comments abut my hate for AR Rahman! Actually I think ARR is nothing short of genius. BUT in a music concert I expected music, not a circus and light performance. Having seen Rahman's gooseflesh inducing concert from 2 years ago I was disappointed in this more slick and expensive version that did not have as much focus on pure music.
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