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| Jai
Ho! Sydney A R Rahman Concert – Review |
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| By
Behindwoods Visitor Maha |
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| The
views expressed in this column are that of
the visitor. Behindwoods.com doesn't hold
responsible for its content. |
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I
think when Sydney and A R Rahman
get together it is always historical.
A R Rahman visited Sydney as
part of his world tour in 2005.
During that time director Shankar
came to Sydney to book A R Rahman
for his movie SIVAJI. After
that what happened was history.
Now he came all the way Down
Under to heal the rough patches
in Indo-Australian relationship
with love.
The concert is part of famous
Sydney Festival which is organized
annually to embrace all kind
of arts and artists. This year
the jewel of the Sydney Festival
was A R Rahman’s concert.
Around 80,000 people gathered
in the Parramatta Park to enjoy
this concert. Some even travelled
300 km from nation's capital
Canberra and waited for more
than six hours to witness the
concert.
The concert commenced with the
traditional aboriginal "Welcome
to the Country". After
that, NSW premier Kristina Keneally
gave a welcome speech on behalf
of the NSW government. Then
famous Australian cricketer
Steve Waugh mentioned a quote
from A R Rahman's Oscar acceptance
speech "All my life I have
had a choice of hate and love.
I chose love and I am here".
He also mentioned him as "Sachin
Tendulkar of Music". Then
A R Rahman in his acceptance
speech thanked all for "being
part of the change" and
he mentioned this concert is
a "historic concert"
in his life as well.
When I was going to this concert
I went with my Sivaji T-shirt.
It is worth mentioning here
that A R Rahman started the
show with a bang in Tamil with
Athiradi Kara Machan from Sivaji.
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Blaze, Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam and Benny
Dayal were some of the show stealers. Especially
Blaze with his energy in "Hamma Hamma"
song totally moved the crowd. The sitar
artist who played the "Slumdog Millionaire"
track is another crowd pleaser. Apart from
that the shining star in the concert was
none other than A R Rahman. He made the
crowd to follow him through when he was
singing "Kwaja mere Kwaja". However
the enthusiastic crowd made him follow them
by singing “Mustafa Mustafa".
A R Rahman asked the crowd to spare some
moments for victims of Haiti Earth Quake.
“Life is just like that. Anything
can happen" he said. Grand finale of
the show was Jai Ho with a fire work display
over Parramatta Park.
I'm kind of disappointed with the number
of Tamil songs sung. However the most crowd
pleasing song "Arabic Kadalarom"
was sung in Tamil. Athiradi kara machan,
Udhaya Udhaya, Mustafa Mustafa, Veerapandi
Kottaiyile, Rukkumani Rukkumani and Konjam
Neruppu are the other Tamil songs performed
in the concert.
Also I'm disgusted with the documentary
which was screened before the concert which
was produced by the Indian Government to
promote Indian Movie industry. It only addressed
Bollywood as the Indian Cinema. I waited
till the end of documentary to see whether
there will be any mention about the South
Indian Film Industries. Nothing happened.
I still don't understand how can Indian
government can portray A R Rahman as an
asset of Bollywood and completely ignore
the South Indian film industries. It will
be great if Indian Government correct itself
firstly from this documentary and start
promoting Southern Film Industries as well.
Finally this concert is a great success
thanks to A R Rahman and NSW government
who organized this concert utilizing all
the resources they can to make this safe
and fun.
Maha
makaramanan@yahoo.com
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