THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India: Music maestro Allah Rakha Rahman kicked off his “Jai Ho-AR Rahman Live” world tour with a spectacular performance in the northern Kerala city of Kozhikode on Saturday evening before an estimated 50,000 jubilant fans.
This is the maiden world tour for the master composer after winning double Oscars for “Slumdog Millionaire” this year and the fourth in his career spanning nearly two decades. The proceeds of the live show, the first of 39 such shows to be conducted all over the world, would go for the rehabilitation of HIV-affected children. Though his itinerary for the world tour is yet to be finalized, sources said he would perform live in cities in the Gulf, the US, Canada and East Asia besides a number of north Indian stopovers during the next five years.
Dressed in blue jeans and a white kurta, the “Mozart of Madras” came on to the stage singing “O Saya” from the film that won him the Academy awards and sent the entire crowd — who reserved their seats much in advance and reached the city from far-flung places — swinging to his tune. Although his father RK Shekhar had spent most of his career setting scores for Malayalam films, Rahman was here for the first time for a live concert which he said was long overdue.
“I wanted to come here for the past 15 years,” he told the cheering audience in between the songs in English, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. “I would be delighted to return to Kozhikode once more.” Malayali singers Sayanora joined Rahman to sing “Athiradee”, the popular number from Rajanikanth’s hit movie “Sivaji”. Rahman also led the chorus for the Malayalam song “Padakali” that he scored for the Malayalam movie “Yodha” in 1992.
Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam, KS Chitra, Rashid Ali, Javed Ali, Mohammed Aslam and Raja Hassan also delighted the audience with the choicest of Rahman numbers during the 180-minute show for the night. They enthralled the audience with 30 songs, 25 of them featuring for the first time in his live show, accompanied by dancers.
Two ramps were attached to the main stage giving the advantage of maximum visibility to the audience besides a rotating video fixed on the stage and digital screens on the galleries.