Rahman Concert in Chicago

I went to Chicago for A.R.Rahman's concert on June 9th. To be frank I did not have very high expectations but the concert surpassed whatever I had. The acoustics of the Arena was good though a bit too loud at times. The music was flawless almost replicating the original versions. The singers were great too. Chithra was accorded a grand ovation with shouts of 'thamizhkuyil' piercing the air. Madhushree, who I hated for her North Indianized rendering of tamil songs especially the Vaaji song, redeemed herself with a great performance supported by her sweet dance steps and facial expressions while singing. Hariharan was great except for the Venilave song which he sung as if Udit Narayanan was singing it. No idea why he did that. Most of the singers were gyrating while singing except for chithra who was calmness personified as she has been from time immemorial.

Adhiradee and The Boss rocked the show. We were all shouting 'sivaji, sivaji' non stop and soon even non-tamilians picked up the cue and started chanting with us. That per se is a moral victory for us 'rajni fans'. After that there were lots of high octane songs including Paatshala,Secret of Success (Boys), etc., When Chaiyya Chaiyya was performed we shed all our inhibitions (the remnants of it rather) and went to dance in the aisle. Rahman's rendition of Humma Humma from Bombay even had timid looking, saree clad women coaxing their equally shy husbands to get up and dance with them to the tunes. I should say that SPB was badly missed by us. He would have sung a few songs from thalaivar's movies.
On the whole it was a memorable event.