MUSIC & LIVE SHOWS

About a month ago, one glorious evening (April 14, 2010), SIR TOM JONES was in Muscat for a concert at the Intercontinental Gardens. I’m pretty sure that the event was a grand success. The gardens must have been full of eager enthusiasts who love to listen to his genre of songs. The local FM channels were going on advertising about this particular concert. They were also mentioning that most of the tickets were nearly sold out long before the actual day of the concert. I did not go to for this show – mainly because I have never been a great fan of English music – whether POP, ROCK, BLUES, METAL, COUNTRY or any other genre.

But that does not mean I don’t like music. I do love music that comes from my country – whether they are film songs or South Indian classical forms. I am not a great connoisseur of south Indian classical music who can identify which raga or which thaala they are singing. I like to listen to them – maybe not always, but would never mind it once in a while.

Film music is a completely different story. I can listen to it any time anywhere. I do love to listen to Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam film songs. I have lived my life in Chennai in a colony that had a majority of people from Bombay/Gujarat and I being a native of Kerala – the affinity towards songs from these languages!!

During my school days, I have never ever gone for a LIVE concert anywhere. We dint own a TV during my school days and would always listen to songs from the radio – VIVDH BHARATHI, CEYLON station etc. My father owned a PHILIPS RADIOGRAM – one that could play the radio and also the records (yes, the round discs!). He also owned quiet of lot of records – both Malayalam and Hindi songs, which we would listen to during the weekends and during holidays.

I think my very first LIVE concert was a show that I saw just after I got married in the year 2001. This was at the auditorium in Chennai that is close to the Gemini fly over (I just don’t seem to remember the name of the hall!!). I along with my newly wedded wife went to this show that had Unni Menon and Radhika Thilak as the lead singers. Even though this was a “Malayalam” event, the lead singers did sing quite a lot of songs from Tamil and Hindi as well. Even though the auditorium was not full, it indeed was a great show.

I have also attended a couple of concerts at the temple in Chennai where KJ Yesudas sang some beautiful "bakthi" songs. Here too the hall used to packed to the full that most of the listeners were on the open road listening to his music.

After coming to my current place of stay, I have attended a lot more LIVE shows. All of these shows have been at various venues and have always been full with enthusiastic supporters of the artists that come here to perform. Over the last few years, Muscat has hosted various artists such as Vijay Yesudas, Afsal, SPB, Chitra, Hariharan, Bappi Lahiri, Jatin-Lalit and various others and the Oscar Winner AR Rahman.

All of these shows were enthusiastically attended by the Indian expatriate community of Oman and for the AR Rahman show, reports said there were many people from the neighbouring country UAE.

The point that I’m trying to make is that in all these shows the venue was absolutely full up with people. The spirit at the venue was so electrifying and full of spirit, it is absolutely fantastic.

Across the globe one common point that unites people of all spectrums is MUSIC. It is also an area that is continuously being developed with new sounds, new tunes and new artists always coming into limelight.

So long as music is there in this world, there will be an audience for it.