As reported by Aloak Tewari-The Times of India Film Awards in Vancouver got off
to a smashing start with a thumping, audience rousing, electrifying Musical
Extravaganza on Thursday night. The back-beat was loud and frenetic and the
singing was both loud and melodious; how and why it didn’t blow the roof off
the Pacific Coliseum will remain one of those mysteries that can only be solved
by extraterrestrial science.
Neha Dhupiya was the hostess and she definitely had
the mostest – style, presence, verve and grace. She gave it her all. She worked
the audience with passion and humour and she had us all dancing to her tune as
well as in the aisles. The concert featured two (unrelated) Chauhans, Sunidhi
and Mohit (with an acoustic guitar), the amazing Sufi style singer Kavita Seth
(talk about fusion!), Shalmali Kholgade, Abbas Hassan and rapper Hard Kaur.
Shiamak Dawar was there with his dancers, but not content with providing us
with visual stimulation, he decided to sing too and performed three numbers.
There were times when the singing and the dancing
seemed a trifle amateurish and hurriedly put together, but that can be
attributed to a lack of preparatory time and jet lag. Lets face it, Vancouver
is not next door to India, it is half a world away and it takes 24 hours to
reach here. And you’re travelling sitting down. The level of energy and
enthusiasm all the performers brought to the show more than made up for
anything else. The show was dazzling, the pyrotechnics were incendiary and the
a-v effects were electric. What more can one ask for.
If there is one song Shiamak Davar is known for it is
‘Jaane Kisne’, a.k.a to the western English speakin world as ‘Johnny Kissme”
and he kickstarted the event by singing it while two of his troupe danced
seductively alongside. It was well done and pleasant to watch and listen to. As
far as singing style goes, Shiamak is more of a crooner, but he then decided to
up the tempo and sang some uptempo numbers for which he and his troupe of
dancers mingled with the audience. He sang ‘Hookah Bar’ and it left me gasping
for oxygen, and then he rushed off to BC Place to rehearse with the big stars
who will be performing at the awards show on Saturday.
Shalmali Kholgade was next on stage and her second
song after a beautiful rendition of ‘Pareshaan’ was simply breathtaking. She
re-did ‘Radha’ in her own unique inimitable style and it sounded fabulous. Shalmali has a sultry smoky sort of voice and
it brought something to the song the original never had. Three hours and fifty
two songs later, I was still humming it as I left the Coliseum.
Abbas Hassan, ex-Ottawa, followed, but spent more
time jogging around the stage than to singing his two set-pieces. I cant
remember what he sang and there was just a smattering of applause when he
finished.
Mohit Chauhan followed Abbas and he had his backing
band with him – a tight band and a tight performance. ‘Naadan Parindey’ was,
naturally, brilliant. I really
appreciate Mohit’s rock approach to Hindi film music and it wouldn’t be an
exaggeration to say that such an approach was long overdue, if you consider
that till he came along there haven’t been all that many hindi film songs in
this genre. ‘Dum maro dum’ comes immediately to mind and so do a few Rahman and
Colonial Cousins songs, but these are hardly of the hard pulsating rock music
kind. That said, I live in North America, if I want to listen to rock I listen
to U2 or ACDC, I don’t think I’ll be slipping a Mohit Chauhan CD into the player.
He is a great musician and balladeer and brings a refreshing change to
Bollywood music, which has become too ‘bhangra-ised’ of late, and I hope he
finds a bigger audience and success in India.
Hard Kaur was up next with her brand of Punjabi-Hindi
rap and hiphop songs. Kaur is a trooper and knows how to work her audience. She
has an incredibly strong voice, great stage presence and unbounded energy. The
songs she sang, that I found noteworthy, were ‘Sadda dil vi tu’, ‘Peeney do’
and ‘Char Baj gaya’, and of course, my
favourite, ‘Singh is King’. She was easily one of the best performers of the
night.
Hard Kaur was followed by Kavita Seth, who was
probably having a bad day. Kavita has a stunningly powerful voice, and though
she performed ‘Ik Tara’ and ‘Tumhi ho Bandhu’, it left me somewhat
disappointed. I found the backing band too loud and that tended to drown out Kavita’s
own singng. In spite of this lacklustre performance I know I will go to watch
her show first chance I get, thats how good she is and thats how good I know
she can be.
Sunidhi Chauhan came next and returned to close out
the show too, after repeat performances by all the above singers. Sunidhi is best known for her foot-tapping,
bouncy numbers and she didn’t disappoint. She’s versatile and her voice has a
very good range; she can sing slow and
sultry as she did with ‘Yaram’ and ‘Te
Amo’, or she can belt it out with the best of
them, as she did with ‘Babli Badmash’, ‘Bin Tere’, Halkat Jawani’ or
‘Bin Tere’. Surprisingly she took a page
out of Kavita’s book and sang ‘Ishq Sufiyana’ to thunderous applause.
There were other surprises too this evening. Duets by
Shalmali and Hard Kaur captivated the crowd and had them dancing in the aisles.
They sang hits like "Daaru desi" and "Ek glassy", and to
top it all off even did a ‘Gangnam Style’ routine.
For all the singing and the music and breathtaking
‘ganaa-bazaana’, the one performance that stood out most was Neha Dhupiya’s
emceeing. She was full of cheer, energy, bonhomie, vim, vigour, good looks,
beauty, presence, whatever, you name it she had it. It was her constant egging
of the crowd, her one liners and her witticisms that stole the show. At one
point she even had a tongue-in-cheek audience participation game going. She
called it ‘Kaun Banega Neha ka Pati’ and it involved randomly selected members
of the audience vying to become her husband!
StarBuzzOnline.com
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