Sunday 25 January 2009

Sonu Niigaam at Saarang


This is and will be my last Saarang as a student in IIT Madras. As always, I am a bit nostalgic about this fact. On Friday night, we had Sonu Niigaam (yeah, that's his new spelling as per numerology) perform in the OAT.
In spite of a couple of hiccups like Sonu lambasting the sound department for some problems on stage right in the middle of his first song and the power going off in between for a couple of times, Sonu kept the audiance enthralled as he churned out hit after hit.
He even demonstrated how music is made in the industry. He asked the audiance for four names of vegetables. He got aloo, bhindi and mooli. Then, one of the guitarists (if I'm not wrong) on stage suggested mutter paneer. Initially, Sonu was reluctant since mutter paneer is a dish made of peas and paneer and not a vegetable. However, he accepted it later on. He then proceeded to attach a tune to these four words and sang a couple of lines as well. It was fun.
Sonu also reached out to two mentally challenged persons in the audience and displayed his emotional side as well. He was quite down-to-earth throughout the show and was much better than the Sukhwinder Singh we had two years ago. Towards the end, he even bared his biceps by removing his jacket. Thankfully, he didn't remove the vest.
After his performance was over, we had another guy called Benny Dayal. However, I left after his first song Dil Se, which he claimed was a tribute to A. R. Rahman for his Golden Globe.
My only disappointment was that Sonu did not sing two of the songs I had wanted him. Though he hummed the tune Kal Ho Naa Ho from time to time, he never sang the song in full. He also didn't sing Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte, his recent hit from Rab Ne Banadi jodi. But other than that, all his other songs were funa and had the audience clapping, dancing and jumping.

3 comments:

santoshi said...

I am huge fan of sonu. I think you had a great time seeing sonu and listening to his songs live.

Anonymous said...

Well, the aloo-bhindi part wasn't as spontaneous as you think it is.. Its in fact staged.. He did the very same thing at Mood Indigo in IITB, Dec '08. The very same accompanist suggests Mutter Paneer and Sonu mock-chides him, but takes the 'suggestion'. :)

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