Indelible, mesmeric, and nostalgic are a few adjectives among the many that would have come up in the minds of the audience at the light music show led by legendary Indian playback singer Dr K J Yesudas in Doha on Thursday evening.
Applause flowed like a river as over 3,000 fans were kept in a state of bliss for nearly four hours as the maestro, his immensely talented son Vijay, inimitable playback singer Sujatha Mohan and her gifted daughter, Swetha rendered evergreen hits in Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi.
The show, part of Yesudas@50 World Tour 2012 commemorating his golden jubilee in playback singing, was organised by Tissot Watches and Watch Corner, a division of leading Qatari business house Marzooq Al Shamlan & Sons (MSS), with Gulf Times as media sponsor.
Dr Yesudas, one of India’s most popular singers, and Sujatha, who made her stage debut with him 42 years ago as a child singer of seven, recreated the magic even as Vijay and Swetha, also swept everyone off their feet while proving that the legacy would continue.
Acclaimed pianist Stephen Devassy, who enthralled the audience with a spectacular keytar solo, gave the perfect backing for the singers, along with a 17-member orchestra featuring some of the finest instrumentalists from India.
Though a dusty atmosphere caused some concern initially about the outdoor show, held at MES Indian School grounds, a drizzle that lasted for a few minutes just before the event took off around 7.30pm, cleared the air. A soothing breeze comforted the audience for the rest of the evening as they enjoyed a great selection of songs.
The very first line of the first song, ‘Idayakanyake’ which Dr Yesudas has been singing since 1967 to open all his stage shows, expectedly elicited applause from the listeners who have grown up listening to the ‘Celestial Singer,’ as he is fondly hailed.
Next was a medley of hits starting with ‘Swarganandhinee,’ followed by Sujatha’s entry with a couple of lines from ‘Alakadalum Kuliralayum’ and joined by Swetha.
While the 72-year-old Dr Yesudas continued the medley, in his ever youthful and golden voice, Vijay joined his dad and mentor on ‘Aayiram Kaatham Akaleyaanenkilum’ before all four sang ‘Manushyan Mathangale Shristichu’ and wound up the medley.
Subsequently, Dr Yesudas recalled his playback singing debut on November 14, 1961, with four lines starting with ‘Jaathi Bhedam Matha Dwesham,’ for composer M B Sreenivasan.
The next song was a Tamil super hit, the Ilayaraja tuned ‘Amma Endrazhaikkatha Uyir’ from the Rajnikant starrer Mannan (1992).Sujatha sang her 1997 Tamil hit, the A R Rahman scored ‘Poo Pookum’ from Minsara Kanavu, with Vijay and Swetha joining in chorus.
This song was an excellent example of the amazingly sweet, young and expressive voice of a singer approaching her 50s.
Next, she joined Dr Yesudas for one of their hit duets in Malayalam, ‘Manikkinavin Kothumbuvallam’ from ‘Pokkiri Raja’ (2010) and composed by Jassy Gift. Before the song, Dr Yesudas reminisced that Sujatha was a tiny tot when she first sung with him and that he had lifted her onto the stage with just one hand.
“God has given her such a great talent, which now her daughter also has. This is God’s grace,” he said.
Then came a very sacred song in Arabic, with the singer giving two renditions of ‘Salathulla Salamulla,’ first in the traditional style and then in the Anandabhairavi raga, which he has done at many of his classical music concerts, to the delight of the audience.
Next it was Vijay’s turn to render a soulful Tamil hit, another Rahman composition, ‘Sahara Pookkal,’ from the 2007 Rajnikant film Sivaji The Boss, while displaying an impressive range.
The 33-year-old singer belted out another Tamil song, this time a dance number, and while swaying rhythmically he came down from the stage and inspired the audience to dance.
Vijay’s next song, ‘Mazhathulli Palunkukal,’ from Pranayam (2011), an M Jayachandran composition, reminded everyone that he has inherited the superb talent of his father to portray emotions through his voice.
Swetha gave a melodious-to-the-core rendition of ‘Mavin Chottile,’ a poem penned by Murukan Kattakkada, for the Malayalam film Oru Nal Varum. The singer in her 20s, sounded so much like her mother.
Next was the turn of Dr Yesudas and Sujatha to launch into a very popular duet ‘O Sainaba,’ composed by M Jayachandran for Amrutham (2004).
The father-son duo performed the mega Malayalam dance hit ‘Oru Madhurakkinavin,’ first sung by the father in 1984 for the film Kanamarayathu and remixed by the son in 2011 for ‘Teja Bai and Family.’
Sujatha’s haunting ‘Rakkili Than,’ which saw Swetha rendering the soulful Hindustani humming, drew applause on several occasions.
Dr Yesudas’ all time semi-classical hit ‘Pramadavanam,’ composed by the late Raveendran, was another song which drew maximum applause.
One of the surprises during the evening was Dr Yesudas and Sujatha singing the first two lines of Vijay and Swetha’s award winning 2007 Malayalam song ‘Kolakkuzhal Vili.’
“This was the first time that the legendary singer has rendered some other singer’s song on stage,” said MSS general manager K V Ramakrishnan (Ravi), also a close acquaintance of Dr Yesudas.
Another surprise was when Dr Yesudas’ wife Prabha came on stage to honour him on behalf of the audience and draped a shawl on him. The singer soon reciprocated the act on his wife.
Among the most notable songs of the evening were ‘Poove Chemboove,’ ‘Vellaippuraavonnu,’ ‘Daivam Thanna Veedu,’ (Tamil), ‘Chand Jaise,’ ‘Madhuban Khusboo,’ (Hindi), ‘Sankrithapamagiri,’ ‘Aadiyushasandhya,’ ‘Rasoole,’ and ‘Devasangeetham,’ (Malayalam).
The brilliant orchestra came in for lavish praise from the singers with Dr Yesudas pointing out that the musicians had performed with utmost perfection, especially since it is not possible to correct a mistake during a live programme, unlike in a recording studio.
The orchestra members were John Danny, Charles Augustine, Francis Xavier, Jacob Peter, Chacko Jose Jacob, Joseph, Gliptson, Joseph Mariadas, Sadanandan, Sebastine Francis (strings), Sushanth (keyboards), Nikhil Ram (flute), Mohamed Fazil (drums), Harikumar, Jayakumar (tabla), Santosh (bass guitar), Anilkumar (lead guitar) and K T Francis (sound engineer). Before the singers had run through the full list of songs, the show had to be stopped at midnight as the time allotted by the authorities had expired.
Without any complaints and accepting the apologies of the organisers, the audience gave a final round of applause and began to disperse – extremely happy with the show and fully aware that no single event could ever accommodate not even a miniscule selection from Dr Yesudas’ illustrious career spanning more than 40,000 songs in many Indian and foreign languages.
The only disappointment was that it took the sound team from Dubai almost one hour to get the audio calibration right. Until then, either the general audio level or bass was high, resulting in distortion and feedback.
Finally, Vijay, who was also conducting the orchestra for his dad’s songs had to ask the sound team to “reduce the bass in Appa’s voice and increase the mid and high ranges.”
In fact, the undesirably high sound level initially jolted the maestro.
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