Osibisa's Chennai Concert - A once-in-a-lifetime treat

I screamed and sang my guts out and my hands are still a bit sore with all that clapping. For everyone who attended the sold out Osibisa concert yesterday at the Music Academy, it was an experience of a lifetime.

For those of us who missed Osibisa way back in the early 80's (If I am right, it was 1984) the concert yesterday was something Chennaities couldn't have asked for more.

My weeks long anticipation, singing their tunes, watching their videos and even getting Chaithu, Suji and her kids listen to the music of Osibisa ended in a brilliant climax last evening.

In two words - Osibisa rocked! It is incredible to believe how they can still create their magic after 40 years. One listen to their latest offering "Osee Yee" will also confirm how they can still be going on strong after all these years. The band's founder, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist (flute, saxophone, african drums) Teddy Osei now in his early 70's and barely able to walk is an inspiration on stage.

My only gripe was the audience. Unlike the concert going crowds of Bangalore the crowd seemed too sober for the music of a band such as Osibisa but that would change very soon. When they started with the usual opener "The Dawn" I thought I was the only guy clapping to that exotic irresistible bass-drum beat. "C'mon Chennai", I complained inside. Unlike a bunch of headbangers the cosmopolitan crowd looked as though they had come to watch a typical classical "Kutchery" performance. But Osibisa's magic would change all that very soon. Crowd pullers, they sure know how to engage the crowd. But even when Teddy Ossei their quintessential leader asked the crowd to dance and sing the audience seemed too lip-tied and unmoved. But in a fully seated audience I wondered if the crowd would ever make a move.

Then comes the ice-breaker, "Ojah Awake", the song that is used heavily in programmes "Kalakka povathu yaaru" on Sun TV and "Rasika Raja" on Surya TV. I think for many in the audience who have been watching these programs it would have come as a pleasant awakening. For "Ojah", Osibisa got the crowd singing. The momentum had already picked up. Osibisa then moved on to perform their other hits, "Music for Gong Gong", "Ai Kobia Yo" and for the latter they got the crowd engaged as well. The best was yet to come. When they announced their next song would be "Ragupathi Raghava" I screamed my lungs out. I was surprised even this song did not prompt the audience to sing till it hit the "Jai Jai Ram", "Sitha Ram" portion.

I had my moments too. During the quieter moments when Teddy was speaking in between the numbers I screamed "Sunshine Day". Teddy responded saying "Yeah Yeah Sunshine". Another member of the audience screamed "Sunshine Day" too and to our delight the band started the song. The crowd got to their feet leaving all inhibitions behind and sang and cheered with the band all the way through. It just felt incredible. To top that, just as the song concluded they started their next big hit "Dance the body music". Back to back the two songs were a treat.

Other hits Osibisa delighted us were "Kilele" where they got the audience singing too, the slow but beautiful ballad, "Welcome home" and another lovely number from their latest album, "Osee Yee". Other good songs I can recall are "Woyaya", "Celebration" and "Right now".

The instrumentalists took time for ample solo's though the solo's were not entirely of the pure rock or of the heavy metal genre. The drummer and rhythm guitarist also took time to display some dancing skills that got the crowd going wild. It was a delight to also watch the percussionists doing their combined solos where the audience cheered and applauded wildly.

Signing off, coming back for the encore with "The Warrior", introducing the band towards the end were all done in perfect style.

For me it was my first visit to the auditorium that Chennai is known for and it was a nice experience. The auditorium is small and the proximity to the artistes on stage is very good. The sound was impressive and I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5 rating for the concert. I would have loved Osibisa perform to a bigger audience like they did when they were here 25 years ago but this is the best a Chennai crowd could ask for.

Suji and the kids loved it. I thought it was a nice induction for Chaithu and his cousins to a live rock concert.

Now to buy the latest album online. The price of the CD's being sold outside the auditorium seemed a bit too dear, unless they had let us get the autographs on the CD by the band members.

Shane Fitzgerald's prank exposes the state of journalism today

Last year, April, 2008 to be precise, I wrote a post about how The Hindu had copied or lifted an article from Wikipedia and claimed it was an authentic article of theirs as they had an author's name below the article. They then replicated the same on their online edition too.

Click here to read my post.

After this The Hindu has been doing it repeatedly (I am sure they were doing it before too) but it is only now that I realise that newspapers all over the world have been doing it.

The expose came when Shane Fitzgerald a student in Ireland deliberately made a fake entry in Wikipedia about the late French composer Maurice Jarre. According to Shane the late Maurice is said to have made the following quote:

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

Though Wikipedia did its best to authenticate it and even remove it, the damage was already done. Newspapers and blogs around the world lifted the hoax quote and published them. The Guardian was one.

Once the hoax was revealed The Guardian even apolologized for the error.

You can read the entire article of the hoax here on Wikipedia or here on yahoo news.

And worst of all. Here is something I am going to predict. The Hindu may innocently copy even this report from Yahoo or Wikipedia into their papers not knowing how many out there know they are copying articles, posts and news items from the internet. Let us see if my prediction will come true.

What a way to show off that you voted!

That's my picture of the picture that appeared in The Hindu of one of India's popular families "showing the finger" to the press after they cast their votes.

Am I to believe that Amitabh, Abishek and Aishwarya are so naive they don't know what that gesture of their finger means? At least Aishwarya's and Amitabh's finger-showing doesn't look so bad but Abishek is actually and clearly showing the finger. Did he do that on purpose?

Well they could have simply got the indelible ink on their forefinger and it wouldn't have looked so bad.

And why is the press trying to take picture proofs of people casting their votes.

For a leading newspaper such as The Hindu that published this picture I wonder if any thought of editing took place to inclulde that pic. Don't tell me that the people at The Hindu are also so naive they don't know that gesture of the hand or did they?

How you can get bad publicity for your organization

These are the guys behind an emerging website for teens called teenfrage.com (Frage, the German word for question). The pic appeared in The Nxg pages of the The Hindu, dated October 23'rd, 2008. The website is about helping teens facing all kinds of problems in their growing-up years. I am sure problems related to relationships and physical relations must be one of the most frequent questions being asked but the words on the t-shirt of the dude on the left is only sending out the wrong message instead. What conselling can you expect from this guy and how much can you trust his advice?

Never expected this from "The Hindu"

"The Hindu" has been the trusted Newspaper in Chennai for several decades and it is the newspaper of choice for millions in this country now that is being published in several metros all over the south.

I have great regard for this newspaper and it has been the choice in our family since the day I knew newspapers.

Over the years I have had my own difference of opinions on several of its articles particularly the ones that serve as last minute fillers. However nothing beats what was published today. Turn to Page 7 of the Friday Review to the article on the famous Chariot Race from the epic movie Ben-hur. Someone called K. Rajgopal claims to have written the article but it is in fact A WORD FOR WORD, LINE BY LINE copy of the same article in Wikipedia. I am not sure if Wikipedia can take The Hindu to court but if the article is on their online version then this can be a case of copyright infringement. You can view The Hindu's online version and they have replicated the page online too. Strangely it even carries a copyright message at the bottom of the page claiming authority of the content.

It is such a shame to see a reputed newspaper as The Hindu resort to this and why the copy editors couldn't detect it. Such callousness from the "The Hindu" is unpardonable. Everything verbatim has been copied that even mistakes from the text on Wikipedia have been copied over. If Mr. Rajgopal at least knew how to correct the text in print or better still re-write the text he could have avoided this disgrace. Check out the line, "In reality when the jump was planned, the character being flipped into the air was not, and stuntman Joe Canutt.....". The error "the character being flipped into the air was not," is incomplete on the article in Wikipedia and it so in print on the article in The Hindu too. This is not careless but irresponsible work.

If it was missed in print Mr. Rajgopal could have saved himself if he only knew how to edit the article on Wikipedia. It is a pity that he doesn't know that too. As of now the error on the text in Wikipedia remains as I have explained here or maybe Mr.Rajgopal is already racing to have it fixed after reading this article. Even then the act of copying cannot be concealed. Can it?