Most of us survive the mumbai traffic thanks to music.I can travel without a door in the car so to say, but I can’t travel without music. I love music and lose myself in music and rhythm. The reason for this late night blogging is that, I am just back from a musical concert and it was electrifying. One great artist is a treat; six of them are like a feast. This to me was a mega event. Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani, Vikku Vinayakaram, Selvaganesh (Kanjira) and Mandolin Shrinivas – isn’t that a deadly combo?
Zakir Hussain was conducting the event to perfection. His husky voice and one liners added zing to his percussion skills. Audience may have missed his analogy of traffic control to a musical concert, they certainly didn’t miss the pun when he announced that he was making a trip to the gas station (refuelling with a Wah Taj or was it a smoke break?) If Zakir is classy, Sivamani is rugged and a firebrand. He creates magic with just about anything is so true! Huge Bisleri container, suitcase, dosa pan, Kadai, spoons and in fact just about anything.
Mandolin Srinivas, as he is famously known - as serene and divinely as he was about 20 years back when I first saw him in a much less hyped concert (in a temple at Nanganallur). The only difference is, I didn’t drool at his looks so much this time, as I was completely enthralled by the melody his instrument produced. Shankar Mahadevan is not one of top of my list vocalists; however he almost did a “breathless” (with his swara alabanai) and rendered the audience speechless.
Vikku is clearly an ace percussionist. His ghatam sings, speaks and romances with other musical instruments under the mastery of his fingers. He interacted with the audience through music. How could one make a musical concert interactive is something that you have to experience yourself. His style, for the uninitiated, is that when he plays, his shirt is unbuttoned displaying rows of rudraksha beads and vibuthi (ash) clad chest. Selvaganesh did a great job with his Kanjira.
Some observations as aside; most of them are long haired, most of them wore Kadukan (diamond ear stud) albeit single and all of them had a shawl. However one striking trait of all of them is their respect for each others’ skill. The jugalbandhi (literal meaning being “tied together”) of six musicians inspiring each other created a seamless performance. Each one of them took the “artistic conversation” to increasingly higher levels and it was a powerhouse performance!
Music is a great stress buster. The way the market has been behaving, I desperately needed to unwind, de-stress and rejuvenate; and that’s just how I feel now - completely unwound, de-stressed and rejuvenated. To borrow cross word’s line (modified) “wear an old coat; buy a front seat in a concert”, I wish I had bought the 2000 bucks ticket. Next time, certainly!!
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Zakir, Shankar & John McLaughlin (from Shakti) had performed at UCLA. They were awesome.
Zakir and Vikku had once performed at Disney Concert Hall (DCH) in downtown LA. DCH goes by strict time. If they say end your show by 10, they mean by 10. So before they could start their "jugalbandhi", the show ended.
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