A R Rahman’s recent Unity of Light concert in New York clearly ranks up with the best in pop music spectacles. Over 50 musicians playing to a packed Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, the three and a half hours of non-stop entertainment leaving a sense of lip smacking satisfaction on exit. Its value lay in its unique presentation of India’s most talented musicians under the common banner of Rahman’s music. Where else would you get to listen to stalwarts such as S.P Balasubramanian rubbing shoulders with an Indian version of Tupac Shakur in the form of a lithe rapper named Blasé. Mr. Blasé wore a discus-sized medallion with the letter “B” around his neck as a constant reminder lest you got caught up in the action and lost your focus on him. Within this range of performers, outstanding talents such as of those of Shanker Mahadevan, Hariharan and Sukhwinder Singh ran the risk of being relegated to the “also ran” bin.

Mr. Rahman dominates the Indian film music industry like Tiger Woods does World Golf. The runner up is puffing his lungs out miles behind, to catch up. Rahman who has formal training in Indian and Western classical music uses basic classical structures to mount complex and layered musical arrangements that distinguish the finished product. Not surprisingly therefore, his compositions tend to grow with repeated listening and once embedded, prove difficult to shake off. The average Bollywood music director, on the other hand, could find enough material in a single Rahman composition to churn out at least three separate songs. Amazingly, Rahman continues to flourish 10 years after his initial debut with the music for “Roja”. His success must lie in his unabashed thrust toward experimenting with a wide range of musical styles, fusing them effectively into a basic Indian theme that is instantly recognizable.

The current tour is the second of Rahman’s North American sessions. The first, in 2000, was limited to a few select locations. The concert at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles, available on DVD was what attracted this reviewer to the possibility of an exciting experience this time around. One, however, gets the sense that the current tour is less ambitious as a production. Instead, it seems a more hurried affair, scrambling to cover 8 locations between New York to Vancouver in the space of 2 weeks. As a result, the technical quality necessarily takes a back seat. Performances were often marred by screechy feedback hum and below-par sound mixing. The brass section in the song “Jumta Jyoti” from the movie Taal, was barely audible. Besides, the overall packaging did not appear terribly different from the 2000 concert; the production chose to fall back on popular numbers from movies such as Lagaan, Taal, Dil Se, and Roja. The only really new materials were tracks from “Bombay Dreams”, the successful London stage play based on Rahman’s music and produced by Andrew Lloyd Weber. To an enthusiast, cognizant of Rahman’s wider repertoire of work, the relative paucity of his more innovative Tamil songs was especially notable. Even the music from “Alay Payuthe”, the original and more exciting version of the more recent hit “Saathiya”, was rendered in their Hindi versions presumably to appease the crowd and sponsors. Finally, the program could have been tighter paced – midway though the program, a Miami school choir brought in to vocalize a song from “Lagaan” verged on the farcical.

For all its drawbacks, this Rahman concert raises the bar for performances by an Indian artiste, to levels that are unlikely to be surpassed in the near future. A stage full of musicians ranging from the traditionally clad tabla players to a western based mini symphony orchestra highlights the very eclectic nature of this project. This is east-west fusion at its best. The array of Indian percussion instruments gels seamlessly with synthesizers, guitars, violins, trumpets and a thumping six stringed bass guitar to produce a sound that is unique and exhilarating. For those of you who missed it this time around, do not despair. This man and his music are here to stay.

Photos by Ms. Premi John.

Dr Roy John, Cardiologist, Film and Media enthusiast, writes from Concord, MA where he lives with his wife and two sons.

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