What was good and bad about Kailash Kher's concert last night

It was my first visit to Mutha Venkatasubbarao Concert Hall inside the Lady Andal School on Harrington Road, yesterday.

As for the concert hall the acoustics were superb. If only the air-conditioning was distributed fairly well in all places the audience wouldn't have had to scream "AC, AC" towards the end of the show. The organizers also seemed to have done a stellar job organizing the event with lots of volunteers and security.

And now for the concert. First the good things.
Kailash was wonderful with his voice and sang with total ease and comfort. His singing was very good. His simplicity and down-to-earth openness won the hearts of the audience.

And now the bad things that actually was a big let-down.
1. Where was the drums? Though most of the songs in the evening were the slow numbers I missed his rockers. And without drums songs like "Tauba Tauba" sounded awful. The very presence of a drum kit, and the sounds that emanate from it, the crash of the cymbals, the sounds of the high-hat, the bass drum, the snares and the toms, would have altered the sound of the show. But where were they?

2. Awful lighting. - Whoever was managing the lighting was doing such a shitty job. A kid could have done better considering how many different types of lights the concert hall had. Most of the time we could hardly see Kailash's face during the performances. The band was playing in total darkness most of the time. I wonder how the stringed instrumentalists were able to see what strings and frets they were playing had they wanted to look at them.

3. A little more emphasis on the lead guitar would have made a difference too. Not that the lead guitarist had time for solos but whatever he was playing was not audible enough, particularly in "Tauba Tauba".

4. Finally Kailash failed to play some classic rockers such as "Chaap Thilak" and "Rang Rang Ma". I also wanted to hear "Daulath Shohrath".

So without the drums this concert scores low in my opinion but the modesty and the singing prowess of Kailash can never be denied.

Osibisa in Chennai

OMG! I can't believe it. Osibisa is playing in Chennai as part of The Hindu's Novemberfest. I missed them when the band played in Chennai in 1984, during their glory days. The band is on a 40'th year anniversary tour. One of their players Dakua Potato is no more. Osibisa opened with Andanda Shankar's "Ragupathi Raghava" in Chennai in 1984. Will they do that this time too?

By the way if you are wondering if you have heard Osibisa before here goes. If you have been watching "Asatha Povathu Yaru" on SunTV or "Rasika Raaja" on Surya TV the music you are hearing in between the shows is from Osibisa's hit "Ojah Awake".

Osibisa's and many other African artistes and bands make Happy music. Singapore in the late 90's used Osibisa's "Sunshine Day" extensively for their "smile" campaign. Music director M.S. Vishwanathan's songs in the Tamil movies "Ninaithaale Inikkum" and "Ore Vaanam Ore Bhoomi" seemed to have been heavily drawn from the music of Osibisa particularly the keyboard music of "Dance the body music". In fact the sound of the keyboard in this song only instantly recalls these old Tamil movies shot in foreign locations.

From among other hits of Osibisa the ones I like are, "Sakabo", "Music for Gong Gong", "The warrior", and "Welcome Home".

You can book tickets online at the The Hindu, November fest's site. Official tickets go on sale only after November 6'th. But you can book your tickets online. Hurry! This time I am not missing them live.

Great concerts coming your way

This time the Novemberfest conducted by The Hindu is turning out to be a dull affair for people like me. 4 concerts featuring North-Indian music including one where South Indian singers, Chinmayi, Anuradha Sriram, Srinivas and Naresh Iyer are singing old Hindi songs. I missed last year's Tirlok Gurtu's performance and was hoping for something similar this year but it has only been a disappointment so far.

Meanwhile Bengaluru is host to some fine concerts. The ageless JethroTull fronted by Ian Anderson play in Bangalore
Spyrogyra the prog-jazz/modern jazz band play at Bangalore on the 23'rd of this month.



The Jethrotull and Anoushka Shankar concert titled A night with the Piper and Princess is on Decmeber the 2'nd.



You can book your tickets at www.bookmyshow.com from where I took these images.

But I'll save the best for the last. On February 15'th, 2009 Iron Maiden is back in India and at Bangalore playing their hits from the past in their "Somewher back in time" tour. I may go for this one but I hope instead of going alone I have some good company in old friends.



Shaji, TP, Binny are you reading this?

Jose Feliciano in Chennai, another missed event

After reading all about it in The Hindu I feel very guilty of having missed a good if not great concert. Reminds me of the days in Athens, Georgia where Nick Staddon (haven't forgotten you man) my ex-colleague, Guitarist, Pianist, Singer (was in some Athens band), VBA/Linux/and a bunch of other software Programmer who had a full range of recording gadgetry would tell me how he preferred Jose's version of "Light my Fire" to that of Jim Morrison's and The Doors (well actually I like them both). Besides being a good artiste Jose is also an inspiration, having lost his eyesight from birth.

There is so much work to do to make a living these days that I seem to be overworking myself with hardly time for anything else. Sometimes I seem to be doing nothing too. In the U.S there is a recession, lesser jobs and fewer projects. The Canadian Dollar even grew stronger than the U.S dollar. Good things should happen and they will. As one of my clients would say to me, "Why should you guys worry if there is a recession in the U.S, most jobs are going to India anyway."