Well, it must have been a special high for The Wandering Souls on the
Saturday night to kick start the most anticipated Rahmania concert.
The crowd packed the hall in no time and then began the show. The
`Muthu' instrumental introduction could have been more dramatic with
high tempo, but it suddenly put brakes. Then the songs started a bit
cold as the audience needed some acquaintance with the performers.

All the excitement began with the rapping of `O humdum' and the
unusual rock of `O yuva'. Soon, `Once more' was the order of the
night. There was this moment of revelation when the Sufi medley was
churned out and the listeners had a great time lauding the flow that
effortlessly bonded the variety of Sufi compositions of Rahman.
The script of the show was interesting too, as many would have come
to know many of the unknown facts about Rahman and his musical
journey.
The lead singer Ashutosh was having a ball of time flaunting his
vocal range to suit Rahman's spectra of compositions. His rap of `O
humdum' or the Alaap of `Tere bina' or the line `Jaise barso mein koi
ganga nahaye' from `Yun hi chal', sans his animated expressions, were
simply knock out. `Shakalaka baby' was a delight. Thanks to the
singer for crooning the song with such aplomb. That was mind blowing.
Another mesmerizing piece came from the flautist, who did the `Bombay
theme' with full gusto. I would also like to mention that the people
on drums, tabla and the sound engineering department, did some great
job to the extent that they even nullified any kind of shortcomings.

Talking about the misses, one expected some tamil numbers from
Rahmans body of work. Anyways, for their genuine efforts, `The
Wandering Souls' takes a bow.

Next time, I hope they break more rules (of course retaining the soul
of music) to go a step further from flat reproduction. It would be a
delight to see some personal `TWS' stamp on the brilliant
compositions of the maestro. (The Sufi and Patriotic medley were
close to it and were enjoyed best by the crowd!)

Keep rocking!

Caran~