My First Visit to a LIVE Concert

Sunday Morning: 6: 45 (20th April 2008)

The TOI was stuck in our rooms door handle (as usual the paper was voluminous... I bet no one can
even go for a quick glance of all pages)

My conscious and subconscious mind was searching for AR Rahman's Free entry pass details (because for the past 6 days they were providing it and I had the paper cuttings of the first two days)

(As it happens to me often...This time too it happened)

"Thanks for the overwhelming response in ARR Chennai Changing notes concert and the House is full now" - Said TOI

I was a bit disappointed, but never let myself down.

9:45 am

Called TOI office at chamiers road, Nandanam, 044-24342121

"Sir, is there any chance of getting tickets for ARR concert..."

"If you have the paper cuttings, we r ready to provide u, was the reply...."

Got my friends bike.... reached Nandanam in the next 15 minutes...

Got the tickets.... But I had also other assignment of searching for a good house for my newly married Andhra Colleague and we got one house too behind kasi theatre...It nearly took me to settle down only by 5:45 PM: (I loved to have a small sleep that day AN, so that I can enjoy the concert to the fullest)

Form there, I went directly to Koyambedu and my friend reached over there and we two started only 6:15 form there

The show was to start at 6:30pm as the invitations said.

To a huge surprise the whole road which was from Koyambedu to Aminjakarai was blocked, as doubted, every single guy from 6 to 60's had their passes in their hand..

When we reached over there by 6:45PM the Lathiwalas (aka police.... when they threaten us they get this name) the gates of St. George was closed and said that, no parking facilities were there and as they were not able to Control the crowd, they had to restrict us and though many had the passes they were not allowed.

Myself and my friend, were determined and got the ray of hope, when few of our ancestors where jumping over the Schools compound walls.... we parked the vehicle in a nearby hotel and decided to take the same route...

To our surprise, the Main gate was opened for few minutes and we managed to get inside... To describe this
Situation, it was really like the bulls running as fast on the streets of Spain....

TICKETS? Who bothered about it, they were unable to control the crowd (50,000++++)...

I was able to hear the beats and voice or ARR getting louder and louder when I was nearing towards the standing gallery.

I can still hear it; it was from "ALAIPAYUTHE".... The song that, I heard from the first was "Vaaji... Vaaji"
from the BOSS movie SHIVAJI, where Hariharan and Madhusree were singing ( & dancing!!#$%)...Though Madhusree was beautiful in a Long Skirt made of Black and silver, HH stole the show with a black and black skin tight Tee of course sporting his ponytail.

Then they were followed by Shankar Mahadevan, Javed Ali, Neethu Kumar(Bar so re mega mega...What a song!) Rehana(ARR's sister for Chaiyya Chaiyya.. Though Javed could not even reach Shukwinders magic, it was enjoyable), Legend with his master piece from Dil se (Dil se re... Dil se re...), followed by Naresh Iyers (Rooba roo roshini.. from RDB)

Karthik's and everybodys favorite from BOYS (Enakkoru girlfriend venumada...) (Particularly boys were very happy to hear this song and they sang along loudly….to grab some attention of the opposites.)

Shivamani’s Drums were the highlight; he used the Suitcase and 20 litre water containers to give a different sound….

And the Show was continuing, but my other half of the active mind was still with the Bike, which we parked in the Hotel… So we thought to leave the concert with some disappointment….

Hopefully we had our bike over there and headed straight to our room…

Eagerly waiting for another Concert................