My own personal review of Sonu Niigaam concert 14th Nov at Wembley Arena
on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 9:53pm
It was unfortunately a rainy day yesterday the 14th Nov 2010. I did however make an effort to dress up in a sari etc as it's not every day I go to a concert like Sonu Niigaam's!
Once inside we quickly realised that the hall itself was very cold so we had to keep our coats on throughout the concert. My friend tried to be brave by not wearing his jacket for some time but eventually had to submit to the cold November evening! The seats that I had paid tickets for were upstairs and once having gone to our seats we soon realised they were quite far from the stage. Luckily once the concert started, as a lot of the seats had been left unfilled, people started moving nearer to the stage.... so did we which made an immense difference. I simply can't understand when you do the booking why the ticket sellers block the best seats upstairs and fill up the middle section first!
The concert started half an hour late. The anchor was Mansi Singh who did her job quite well. Mansi started off the programme shouting 'Haath pe Haath rakh kar baithne bilkul mana hain!'!...They wanted everyone to join in etc. It was also explained that the concert was totally 'live'..that in a lot of concerts the artists did lip sync but this was not the case here.
The first singer was a female singer Gunjan who had a bubbly (reminded me of a bubbling brook!) melodious voice. She started by singing the song from Rab ne band di jodi 'dance pe chance'. Then she sang another number after which Sonu Nigam came on stage. She was thoroughly entertaining and amazing as a supporting artiste.
Sonu Nigam has an enormous stage presence. His height, his style of clothes and hair style adding to it. Once he started he abounded with an immense amount of energy. Personally I felt the first half hour of the concert wasn't particularly entertaining and to me a waste of time (but I am sure a lot of people will disagree)! He has an amazing voice and I am pretty sure he can be put in the same league as the 'old' classic singers like Moh'd Rafi et al.
However in this concert I felt he wasted a lot of time repeating words (Takaluf kijiye)to 'entertain' the crowds. He went for more lively numbers than the ballads that I prefer him more for. He also spent a lot of time explaining how a song comes into being from Lyrics to the final stage of the singer singing it. He asked the audience to give him words which were Aloo, Bhindi, Mooli and Matter Paneer! From these words he created a song which was quite hilarious and explained how different singers might sing the same song and how different composers would compose it. This part could have been cut short a little although it was quite 'educational'.
The dancers were good but not spectacular...adequate although Sonu made their job harder by stopping songs midway whilst the male dancers had the female dancers in the air! This act had the audience in fits!
As part of a newer song 'Main Hoon Na' he filled it in with 'old' classic numbers which almost everyone enjoyed. The London audience was simply amazing knowing the lyrics to most of the songs he sang. He thoroughly involved them in the whole performance by 'offering' the mike to them in parts of songs.
Another male singer came to sing a couple of golden oldies which once again everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Gunjan came back half way whilst Sonu took a break and entertained us with 'Jai ho' from Slumdog Millionaire and 'Aaj phir jeena ki tamanna hain' from Guide. Sonu once again had the audience in fits by waving his arms about behind Gunjan who apparently did not realise what was happening and why the audience was laughing (of course this must have been staged).
Sonu Nigam himself sang a 'classic' song from the film Guide 'Tere mere sapne abh ek rang hain'.
After the break he sang 'Sandese aate hain' from Border, Kabhi Alvida na kehna, the title song 'Saathiya', Deewana (audience choice) and 'Al is well'. He also sang the song 'paagal stupid man' with Gunjan from the film 3 Idiots.
When the concert finished I felt that something was lacking. I, for one, was not satisfied fully. It felt unfinished to me. Overall though I and my friend did enjoy the concert immensely and still thought it was value for money.
A nice night out to keep off the winter blues!!!