Rajhesh Vaidhya Abu Dhabi, 2nd May

[nri]

Veena: Shri Rajhesh Vaidhya
Mridangam: Shri Mohanaraman
Mridangam: Shri Sriganesh
Khanjira: Shri Paramasivan
Ghatam: Shri Subramanian

1. Varnam Ghambiranattai Dr BMK
2. Vathapi Hamsadwani
3. Revathi Nanati batuku?
4. Telisi rama - Purnachandrika
5. Endaro mahanubhavulu - Shri
6. Raguvamsa sudha Kadanakuduhalam
7. Expresso Kapi Adi
....

The concert started at 08:00 pm and I had to leave after the expresso!
Some observations:
1. Vathapi was played in superfast speed and I am hearing it for the first time in that speed. There was a neraval/ks?, but in the concordian speed, both hamsadhwani and Ganapathi appeared lost to me.
2. Shree pancharatna was pristine and I just loved it once again.
3. Expresso was the artist's own composition, featuring in one of his albums, Seventh sense.
Rajhesh announced that the song was named so after some time spent at CCD! I was hearing it for the first time and it was the best fusion I heard recently. Every bit oozed kapi. From a single veena, we heard guitar, mandolin and few other strummed and bowed instruments. There was a good 20-30 minutes tani of a high dB and still very engaging. I was actually hearing folksy beats (a la the Youth-King) from a tenuous khanjira and I was curious to "see" how the player produced them.
4. Without actually strumming, Rajhesh was doing gamakams for quite long durations. It was amazing and kept me wondering if it was electrical augmenting?

For a change, I liked Expresso more than Vathapi! Am I a puritan or a (bad)samaritan? |(

Overall a good concert!

[arasi]

NRI,
A good, unbiased review!

[rshankar]

NRI,
I had to laugh at your quip. Did the espresso do its job? i.e., keep you awake?
Sorry if I have burst your bubble of being a bad Samaritan, but I think you are a true puritan, preferring a self-confessed fusion piece to a jet-setting/jet-speed vAtApi....!
Shouldn't the Sri rAga pancaratnam be endarO and not entarO....

[vsarmaiitm]

The rEvathi composition (item 3 in the song list) is
nAnAti (everyday) bathuku (life) nAtakamu (stage play) by annamAchArya

[Rsachi]

nri,
I think I reported last year that Ilayaraja at National College grounds Ganesh Utsav had Vaidhya seated upfront and centre in his big and beautiful show, and let him play Kapi for a couple of minutes, and it was beautiful.

Vaidhya's frenetic presence is full of caffeine and his Kapi, espresso Carnatic kind, should have been delightful.
I shall try and buy that track online if possible today.
Thanks!

[Rsachi]

Wonderful...I bought the track and downloaded for Rs 15.- on Flipkart in all of 5 minutes on my iPad....
The track is about 15 minutes and a 320 Kbps MP3 file.

[nri]

Thanks everyone for the comments and corrections.
rshankar, with the energy of the main artist and the decibels, there was no scope for dozing!
And you did not burst any bubble; but I had been rolling my eyes like crazy for a long time since the first post. And let me get back to my normal self