Chinnakuyil Chithra Celebrating 25 Years

[aruvi]

Tomorrow, there is a show with the 3 plus Chinmayi, Mukesh, Suchithra, Pa.Vijay at Air Canada Centre, Toronto.

[aruvi]

Concert was very good. A number of evergreen melodious songs were sung. Lots of crowd. SPB is still phenomenal...no words to express. When he sang "Ballelakka" from Sivaji, it was the ultimate. Everyone clapped hearing him sing those fast lines. He sang Shankarabaranam in Telugu, as a request from the audience.

Yesudas was very relaxed and sang with full contentment. Started with a nice little speech in Tamil, about feeling very happy to sing for the first time in Canada with his Thambi. He actually made the audience stop clapping for "poove sempoove un vaasam varum" song, saying that they must listen to the beautiful flute piece. He also sang "Kadalinakkare" and "Pramadhavanam" for the Malayalee audience, as there were a few.

Chithra sang a nice mix of songs. She started with Kuzhaloodhum Kannanukku and went on to sing duets with both kings of south playback. First time, I heard the song "Kanna Varuvaya" being sung on stage, and that too, by the original singers. Wonderfully executed, all songs. It was cute to see Chithra prompting KJY a few times in the songs.

Chinmayi too was in her element. Started off with a sweet speech, and gave a great rendition of Kannathil Muthamittal. She sang "Enaatha sOlvenungo" with full enthusiasm

Mukesh is a very good singer. Had already seen his singing from another program. So versatile...could sing Appadi pOdu and Manmadhaleelai with the same involvement.

Suchithra is not as heard of as some other female singers. But is another talented young singer. Her songs were well executed as well.

Must thank Shyam's Music Group for giving such good music. They are based in Chennai, and executed a near perfect result. The sound engineer did a poor job with the female voices at times, but otherwise, on the music side, excellent show. About 90% were evergreen hits.

Pa.Vijay's emceeing was good too. Gave some nice information:

1)Ovvoru Pookalume song being translated into Chinese
2)One famous male playback singer kept singing "periyamaa ponnu kathal panna pidikkum" instead of "priyamaana penna kathal seiyya pidikkum"
3)Read out a poem on Niagara Falls.
4)SPB's favourite song by KJY is Pramadhavanam vendum

On the flip side, the organisers need upset the audience badly by messing up a concert that was going nicely by promoting themselves and their sponsors(Pa.Vijay took a dig that he felt like SunTV sponsor announcer!), showing their unprofessionalism throughout the show everytime they came on stage or held mikes. It's too bad that the people who can bring such shows having to be the ones who always ruin the shows from being fully satisfiable.

In the end though, seeing SPB/KJY and Chithra in real life was the most important thing, and totally enjoyed myself and an unforgettable 4 hours of wonderful songs.

[raagadevan]

Thank you, aruvi. Here's Chinmayi's blog about the Toronto show:

http://chinmayisripada.blogspot.com/

[aruvi]

A review of the Bay Area Concert with SPB, KJY, Chithra and Suchithra.

http://surveysan.blogspot.com/2007/07/4.html

Seems like a few songs were changed.