Accompanied by papancham ravindran - mridangam ,S Karthik - Ghatam and BS Purushotaman - Kanjira
Atleast 2 decades since I listened to Sukumar prasad's guitar once or twice in a temple concert, I just went to hear prasanna for the first time.That memory is still there.But What I heard from prasanna is scintillating showmanship , but completely let down by the excess sound decibel that must have made me deaf. I only listened to say 2/3 rd of the concert, the scheduled start was delayed by 40 minutes.
1. evari bOdhana (varnam) - AbhOgi - patnam
2. mahaganapathe - natanArayani - MD
3. kanta joodumi (R N S) - vAchaspati - T
4. raghuvamsa sudha - kAthanakuthoohalam - Patnam
5. bhuvaneshwariya (R N ?) - mOhanakalyAni - HMB
One of the best varnam, set an early expectation that guitar is just too good and his style of continous play did give a clear CM feel. The sound was excess,thankfully he took it with a little less vigour in the natanArayAni, which I enjoyed the most.
The alApanai of vAchaspathi, took an early route of mOhanam --> kalyAni and then to a perfect vAchaspathi.Nice neraval and swaram ably deafened by the percussion support(only ghatam was ok). His swarams had a tinge of him playing on a base guitar and lead guitar.
One of the most favourite instrumentalist's krithi is this raghuvamsasudha , he played too well .His earlier alApanai had no shades of kAthanakuthoohalam , but he spoke at the end saying that he is playing this kAthanakuthoohalam after 10 years , and he tried something innovative in the alApanai (that explained why I did not get).
A perfect mOhanakalyAni was brilliant, expectadly the HMB krithi set well.The excess sound created a severe headache and I had to leave .
Why should 3 percussionist play at the same time and rob all the beauty ?
WHy can't sukumar prasad adjust his guitar tone to an acceptable decibel ?