Vivekanandan delivers a stunning pro-performance on ISS 2008

It is only recently that I have been watching ISS more frequently unlike ISS 2007. Vivekanandan was my initial favourite but later fell out in favour because of poor performances. But he is slowly making a comeback and yesterday was a smashing comeback performance.

In fact I was surprised at the low praise that Sharath and Venugopal gave for Vivekanandan after yesterday's awesome performance in the Fusion round of the competition. Being proficient on the violin Vivekanandan used it to enhance the total effect of the fusion song where he stretched his vocals to the limit including even a little pop-like vocal. The video actually showed judges completely blown by the performance. At one stage Sharath's mouth was literally open.

Vivek's long performance is in two parts.





Highly appreciative was Didi's comments but when she said something about George Benson, that was when I was really fell for what she said. So obviously I am going to explain what George Benson does and how Vivekanandan performed a similar thing.

George Benson is more popularly known for making hits such as "The Greatest Love of all" which became a huge hit for Whitney Houston in the late 80's. But what many don't know is that George Benson is one of the greatest guitarists around. His style is predominantly jazz but his style seems to transcend all genres. He plays a custom made Ibanez guitar and besides his melody and virtuosity what he is popularly known for is his "scat" singing, i.e singing along with his guitar licks and solos the same note that he is playing on the guitar. He does it with precision and speed. Check out his song "The world is a Ghetto" from the album "In Flight".

So what George did using his guitar Vivekanandan did playing his violin and Vivekanandan did go another further step in that that he was singing Carnatic swarams simultanesouly playing the same notes on the violin. Vivek's was difficult because he had to use his vocals while simultaneously supporting his violin below his chin.

Earlier Gayathri's ghazal wasn't bad either. She could have slowed down a bit.