Rahman ARARARARAR AAAAA..

I realized while scrubbing my posts (yeah I have to do that;) ) that I never wrote about the Rahman concert in Oakland at the top of the month (I like to say it like CNN yeah;) )

Needless to say it was crazy, frenzied and we all loved it very much. I will not describe the concert in full, you can read it here. But the highlights were

1) Oakland named June 2 (the day of the concert) as "AR Rahman Day". If you see Oakland, you will understand what an extra-ordinary thing this is. If it was Sunnyvale, maybe not, but Oakland yes. (I am actually surprised Sunnyvale doesn't have Indian street names already, but that is too forthcoming;) )

2) I was thoroughly disappointed in his concert for one thing. His claim-to-fame songs were not part of it at all, except Bombay's Humma Humma. I would have loved to see (hear, duh!) him starting with "Chinna Chinna Aasai" going to Donga Donga, & to Bombay & to Gentleman & to Rangeela's tunes to so many more. It was a huge disappointment for me! Sigh!

3) The display of torches (cell phone back lights, ingeniously converted) to his "Vande Mataram", by the audience, was impressive and the Arena folk had enough sense to turn off stadium lights so we could watch how well we were doing;) Thank God for common sense!

4) We met with Sivamani and took pictures with him and he actually said "Whaaat is this?" when I offered him my cheque-book to give me an autograph (Really now, I didn't have anything else handy, what was I to do?)

5) We saw Chitra and Sadhana Sargam while they were walking out. Chitra was feeling the Oakland chills @ 12 am ;)

6) We met Naresh Iyer and spoke with him briefly. He is really just a kid, I was so surprised to see him and just haven't been able to match his voice to his face ever since;)

Last but definitely not the least we saw the GOD! Rahman was out last and we were able to catch a brief glimpse up-close. What was sad was that everyone else was shuttled away in Mercs and Cadillacs and Hummer Limos (can you believe it? Desis are minting money here;) ) , the GOD was shuttled out in some stupid GMC truck (I have to start with my cars thingy even here??!?)

But anyway it was all worth it. Even listening to Hariharan badly damage some songs with his own personal touches to it, so typical of singers when they think they have done it all and get on stage. I personally never liked this man. Or enduring Sukhwinder Singh's badly timed show of excessive knowledge in Hindi lyrics and their background-slash-meanings. (Yuck! Yuck!)

When I was looking for the link above, I stumbled on the fact that Rahman is 41. He is 41?! Man!! He practically grew up in front of our eyes;)