Well, those who are in my closed circle know that I'm an ardent fan of Harris Jayaraj. I've also written a special entry for the man here when I attended his concert. But, who would want to miss the Oscar-award winning Indian composer's concert after many years he had been to Malaysia?! Not me. I would definitely want to experience the live music from A.R. Rahman; also celebrating 30 Years of ARR.
When A.R. Rahman 2023 - Secrets of Success live concert was announced to be held in Stadium Bukit Jalil on 28th January 2023 on DMY Creation's Facebook, I was eager to attend it as it would be the first time of me going to ThalaivARR's concert! (Thalaivar means Chief).
I managed to purchase the ticket on ticket opening day itself which was on 19th September 2022. Since then, I have been counting days to attend the live concert from the Grammy + Academy Award winning musician's concert. I really loved ARR's music and songs when I was young. I have a number of favourites from his compositions which play a part in my playlist too.
The day arrived. It was my fourth time attending a concert, but first time attending alone. My sister couldn't make it but I was still so eager, still. Not going to lie, the massive crowd already made me exhausted. Anyway, I'll come back to this later - which is more to the management side. Let's talk about music first.
I entered the stadium after almost 30 minutes of queueing, which was still okay. Some were queueing for an hour and so. So, I got my seat on the third row of the stadium - which was quite far from the stage. I mean it was very far. One thing that pleased me, at least, was the huge projections for us, the audience. The concert had a grandeur entry for the man. Drums Sivamani mellowed us up with his extraordinary drumming skills. It gave me goosebumps, even though I could see him physically as tiny as much, but I was glad to witness the legendary man on the big screens.
The first song that he sang was the magnificent 'Jai Ho' from the film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Since then, we were tied to his 'spell' for 4 hours. I was enjoying the concert throughout - be it Hindi or Tamil songs. Only at some places, I felt that he or his singers could have performed certain songs in Tamil. For example, 'Nenjam Ellam'. It wasn't sung in Hindi fully, but was performed in bilingual. It disrupted the flow of the song, for me, but, anyhow, it was a live concert so I wouldn't want to miss to enjoy it. There were a few songs that I could name, but there weren't a lot of them - as how people are spreading the news that A.R. Rahman conducted the concert with many Hindi songs - it isn't true. Not even 10% of them were Hindi songs.
I really had to appreciate singers like Shweta Mohan and Hariharan that he brought to the stage. They were magnificent. Both of their voices felt like it was dipped in honey; especially when Hariharan sang 'Vennilave Vennilave'. I cried listening to it. I felt really grateful to have witnessed their live singing. I wouldn't forget to mention the other singers like Jonita Gandhi, Rakshita Suresh and Haricharan. However, I wished that ARR could have brought more singers as the same singers were singing most of the songs.
Many popular songs were performed like 'Dil Se Re', 'Yaakkai Thiri', 'Uyire Uyire', 'Ella Pugazhum, 'Ponni Nadhi', 'Muqabala', 'Malargale Malargale', 'Malipoo' 'Chaiya Chaiya' and 'Kun Faya Kun'. One of my favourite segments was when A.R. Rahman was performing the 'Raga' from his compositions. My favourite 'Uthaya Uthaya' was sung too. It was bliss to my ears.
Another highlight of ARR 2023 - Secrets of Success concert was when Dato' Sri Siti Nurhaliza performed along with Haricharan the song 'Munbe Vaa' - when I thought she was going to perform a Malay song. The whole stadium truly enjoyed her version of 'Munbe Vaa' as it was gracefully sung by her. There is no comparison made to the original version that was sung by Shreya Goshal, but Dato' Sri Siti Nurhaliza nailed it being a Malay speaker. Her poised singing gave her a standing ovation from the 70,000 people!
Video Courtesy: Dato' Sri Siti Nurhaliza Facebook
A.R. Rahman continued his magic by inviting the mega-crowd to sing along to the 'Secret of Success' song. The lyrics of the song were displayed on the big screens which made it a lot easier for us to sing along. I truly enjoyed singing it. Then, he sang 'Mustafa Mustafa'. I really wished I could have been with my friends while vibing to the song.
At one point, I didn't know whether because I was alone, or the people beside me didn't enjoy it so much that I couldn't really indulge myself in the historical night but I tried. Towards the end of the concert, I didn't care about others and started slow-dancing for 'Urvasi Urvasi'.
The crowd was high and they were demanding for more songs when A.R. Rahman was about to wrap up the concert. He ended the concert with the 'Vande Mataram' song. To my surprise, I thought he would have performed some audience-favourite song but that was still fine. That showed their patriotism, anyway.
Overall, I did enjoy the concert with some hiccups. One is the sound system. I didn't know about others, but the sound system at the zone where I was sitting was disappointing. I didn't even know that 'Yaakkai Thiri' was sung in Hindi until I saw somebody's story on Instagram. Sad life. Also, the crowd management. It was a mega-crowd of 70,000 people and they could have planned better on managing it rather than having the audience queue up for more than an hour. I went to the stadium as late as an hour before the concert began but there was a huge crowd still. And I heard the crowd who had gone into the stadium earlier were sitting without any entertainment except for some hosting session which wasn't fruitful - as per the people. Big projections on screens were great - as in the visuals while songs are being performed - but some glitches of the videos almost made me go blind. Perhaps, I could have enjoyed it better if I could really listen to the songs. Please take note, DMY Creations.
I really hope to join another concert of yours which has some proper settings in near future. However, thanks for the night, G. O. A. T.
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