Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy Troupe Rocks Atlanta- Atlanta Dunia -

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy Troupe Rocks Atlanta
Photos & Story by Girish Modi

After their huge success of Shreya Ghoshal’s concert a month ago, Rahim Paracha and his buddy JD of Café Bombay upped their ante and lined up yet another spectacular and extravagant concert on Saturday August 7, 2010 for the music aficionados of Atlanta at the Civic Center. This time Bollywood’s most popular and critically acclaimed composer trio Shankar-Ehasan-Roy with equally popular singers like Mahalaxmi, Richa Sharma and Shafqat Amanat Ali enthralled the houseful audience for over 3 hours. This was troupe’s seventh live performance of their North American tour aptly named as “Inspiration” to spread the message of love, friendship and peace though twelve concerts in a span of 30 days.

The show started fifteen minutes late and after a few beginning dance numbers, the emcee of the show, a jovial guy named Ravi welcomed all and introduced Richa Sharma - the lady with a big, beautiful voice. While participating in singing televised contest “Dhoom Machaade” in 1995, Richa dominated the contest and was known as “Faridabad ka Fataka” and swayed not only the judges but also the audiences all over the world. She was the finalist in this contest. Richa’s big break came from A. R. Rahman composed song in film Taal. Richa started her set with "Rom Rom" lines of "Sajda". She quickly moved to "Mahi Ve" (Film Kaante), followed by "Gori Naal Ishq Mitha". The next song was Tauba Tauba Ishq mai kariyan (Film Kaal) . Clad in black-silvered-line vest and a blue jean, Richa easily exchanged playful banter with the crowd, while wowing them with her strong vocals. By the middle of her set, dozens of fans were dancing in the aisles. Overall she had set the stage for some fireworks and the audience was ready for more.

Next on stage was Shafqat Amanat Ali - the pakistani singer, Mitwa fame - that guy who has everyone going dizzy with his beautiful voice. Shafqat is the youngest son of the legendary singer Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, making him the 7th generation of the Patiala Gharana. He has been a student of the classical music tradition of the sub-continent since age four. He was inspired towards music by his father and his uncle Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, though his earliest education in music came from his grandmother. Shafqat writes and composes most of his songs. He enjoys experimenting with various styles and intends to work and fuse with musicians from diverse backgrounds, cultures and countries, maintaining the strong identity of his traditional style of classical music. His set included the following: Tere Naina (Sajda), Saawan Beeto Jaye (Fuzon), Bin Tere (I hate Luv Storys), Dam Ali Dam - Before starting this song, he said that this song is like a prayer to him and requested the audience to join in this ibadat. He looked possessed while singing this one, blessed by all the music gods. His interpretation was quite astonishing, punctuated by some heavenly alaaps and tans, all improvised right there, right then. His band was jamming on this one as well - a folk song, sung in a rock style, with heavy classical touch. He introduced his band and with a group hug, they took a bow and left the stage.

By then, it was almost 9:30 and fans were buzzing with anticipation for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. The time had come! While the band members geared up, Ravi introduced the trio with tons of superlatives, most of which they rightly deserve and without much delay, the three descended the stage and Shankar's voice boomed as he came on stage singing "Mangalam Bhagwan Vishnu".

Here’s brief prologue of the trio for the people who are unfamiliar with them. Shankar Mahadevan, a qualified software engineer, studied Western, Hindustani and Carnatic classical. A leading playback singer with over thousand songs to his credit, he also composed Breathless. It is said that Shankar unseated Kumar Sanu as number one singer. Ehsaan Noorani studied music at the Musicians' Institute in Los Angeles. He composed Alien Desire, did several jingles and like Loy, was part of a blues-and-acid jazz band. Loy Mendonsa is trained in Western classical and also learned the rudiments of Indian classical music. He performed with several group bands, plays (Godspell, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar) and composed jingles and signature tunes (Fauji, The World This Week.)

This musical trio made their debut as composers in Mukul Anand's film Dus. The film remained incomplete after Anand's death, though the album, which was later released, clicked in a big way. Then they composed music for a couple of films like Rockford and Bhopal Express, but all of them went unnoticed. Their entry to mainstream cinema was with Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir which was a musical hit, and earned the trio a place in the Bollywood film industry. They also earned IIFA nominations for the same. The turning point of their career as music directors was Dil Chahta Hai, which was the debut film of Farhan Akhtar as a director. The film won wide critical acclaim and went on to attain a cult status among audiences.

Following Dil Chahta Hai, their next big venture was Dharma Productions' Kal Ho Na Ho, directed by Nikhil Advani. The album broke all the previous records of best selling album. The music won both commercial and critical acclaim, and won many awards including the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. Since then, they have frequently collaborated with director Karan Johar, including his Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. That soundtrack broke the record of Kal Ho Na Ho, and once again they had the best seller of Bollywood music.

The trio also won several awards including Filmfare awards (Bunty Aur Babli, Kal Ho Naa Ho), RD Burman Award (Dil Chahta Hai) and Star screen awards (Mission Kashmir, Bunty Aur Babli, Dil Chahta Hai). In 2004, they bagged the National award for the film Kal Ho Naa Ho.

Each member of this trio brings his own talents and experiences to the group, combining the Carnatic and Hindustani vocal tradition (Shankar), Western rock (Ehsaan) and a deep understanding of fusion including a virtual mastery over the electronic synthesizer (Loy). They continue a tradition quite common in Bollywood music, that of partnerships between music composers contributing and pooling their individual strengths, sometimes combining deep knowledge of Hindustani or Carnatic classical music and technical expertise as composers and orchestral arrangers. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy probably represent the first trio of music composers to entertain Bollywood audiences with their chart-topping music. They are slowly becoming popular by the title 'Amar-Akbar-Anthony' of Bollywood music.

Coming back to the concert, Shankar promptly launched into the first song of the evening Jhoom Barabar Jhoom - With this song, the party was on. This is an incredible song and Shankar only sang it better live unlike Shah Rukh in the movie. By now he had the audience, tapping dancing, singing and screaming. He did a part one and two of this song, the second one the faster version. Then came songs from Dil Chahta Hai, Pretty Woman (They made all the women in the audience stand and dance), Dil Da Mamla (Raman Mahadevan supported Shankar fabulously in this awesome song).

While singing Rind Posh Maal, Shankar somewhere in the middle broke out from the song and did a sequence with his band members - the percussionists. Shankar would sing the tarana and tabla bols and the drummer, dholak, congo followed. It showed Shankar's mastery of his art and solid classical music base - what he sang/said here was sheer genius - he anchored the entire act single handedly and had audience spellbound. Where's the party tonite - Shankar and Raman did this song with Anusha. Main Hoon Don – it was electrifying! Again, Shankar held this song and made it so much fun with awesome vocals and attitude. Tere Naina - This is a not so much heard song from Chandni Chowk to China - a slow number which Shankar introduced as a beautiful song. Anusha supported him on this one. This song has two lines after every antara where the first word to second transition is beautiful - from a very low note to a very high note ex "yeh pyaar ki hai baatein,kuch ankahi mulakaatein". There is so much anticipation leading up to these two lines and Shankar executed this beautifully.

Shankar introduced Mahalaxmi as this point - a very glowing intro for sure. Mahalaxmi made her singing debut with A R Rahman in Mani Ratnam's Dil Se (1998). She also recorded for the movie Dus, which was Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's debut as music directors. Since then she has sung over thousand songs in films, Serials jingles and original albums. She was part of several successful soundtracks such as Mission Kashmir, Yaadein and Saathiya and worked with some of the biggest music composers like A R Rahman, Anu Malik, Jatin-Lalit and more. She has also sung for all of the Yash Raj Productions' biggest hits like Dhoom 2, Bunty Aur Babli, Salaam Namaste and Fanaa and most recent successful albums like Ta Ra Rum Pum and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. Mahalaxmi’s act was short; she only sang two songs - Chup Chupke from Bunty Aur Babli, and Aaj Ki Raat from Don. She gave gorgeous vocals that are full of depth and feeling.

After a short break Shankar came back on stage to enthrall the audience all over again with Mitwa song --he very gracefully invited Shafqat back to the stage and they sang this as a duet. Next was Rind Posh Maal from Mission Kashmir. (In the movie the trio had performed this song just like on stage)From start to finish, this was just incredible that gave goose bumps to some and tears in eyes to others. He got a standing ovation for this. Wow - what a performance! Next was a soulful song “Maa” from Film Tare Zameen Par”.

Upon persistent demand from the audience Shankar did do title song of his album "Breathless" and that was after almost 2 hours of singing. He sang 2.5 minute song in one breath, and it was mind blowing! They had all but wrapped up and started introducing the organizers when they found out they had time for 2 more so they did "Sajda" and "Kajrare" with Richa and Anusha respectively. They got one of the many standing ovations from the crowd which was mostly on its feet by now and walked off the stage very promptly.

Rahim Paracha gave a vote of thanks to national promoters Darshan Mehta and Rockey, the audience, sponsors and to each and every artist (they were presented bouquets of flowers) for making this evening a memorable event. When all performers took a final bow the audience rose to its feet and applauded for the blockbuster live performance for over 3 hours that music lovers will cherish for many years to come.