Dindigul Leoni at his best in Dubai
I have only seen him in TV debates earlier but had an opportunity to see him live yesterday in Dubai as part of the 5th anniversary celebrations of Dubai Tamil Community. The topic was the age old subject as to whether Money or love prevails (panama/pasama) with lots of local talent roped in as the speakers. Leoni stood out for the lively way in which he conducted the whole debate and his phenomenal memory skills and singing talent of both old and new songs with some interesting anecdotes was simply brilliant. He also sang two songs extempore live on stage as part of Gangai Amaran's troupe including the classic Chandrababu golden hit' bambara kannale' virtually imitating the master comedian with the same voice and style. His tribute to the Pavalar brothers family of Baskar, Raja and Amar especially to the one and only Maestro Raja on stage as one of the major contributors of contemporary Tamil cinema music simply cannot be disputed.
Gangai Amaran along with SP Charan and his son Venkat Prabhu as usual came up with lots of histrionics and meaningless jokes on stage to enthuse the audience but miserably failed with his attempts and came up as a cropper. In fact some of the songs sung by the local artistes were much better and Amaran's troupe was more like a fish out of water most of the time. He may be a good writer, lyrist, compeer, film director and jack of all such trades but nowhere near his illustrious brother when it comes to music direction or singing.
After all a Sachin or Ilayaraja or SPB are only born once in a generation and stand out for sheer class! We should all be privileged to be living in that generation.
RK
I have only seen him in TV debates earlier but had an opportunity to see him live yesterday in Dubai as part of the 5th anniversary celebrations of Dubai Tamil Community. The topic was the age old subject as to whether Money or love prevails (panama/pasama) with lots of local talent roped in as the speakers. Leoni stood out for the lively way in which he conducted the whole debate and his phenomenal memory skills and singing talent of both old and new songs with some interesting anecdotes was simply brilliant. He also sang two songs extempore live on stage as part of Gangai Amaran's troupe including the classic Chandrababu golden hit' bambara kannale' virtually imitating the master comedian with the same voice and style. His tribute to the Pavalar brothers family of Baskar, Raja and Amar especially to the one and only Maestro Raja on stage as one of the major contributors of contemporary Tamil cinema music simply cannot be disputed.
Gangai Amaran along with SP Charan and his son Venkat Prabhu as usual came up with lots of histrionics and meaningless jokes on stage to enthuse the audience but miserably failed with his attempts and came up as a cropper. In fact some of the songs sung by the local artistes were much better and Amaran's troupe was more like a fish out of water most of the time. He may be a good writer, lyrist, compeer, film director and jack of all such trades but nowhere near his illustrious brother when it comes to music direction or singing.
After all a Sachin or Ilayaraja or SPB are only born once in a generation and stand out for sheer class! We should all be privileged to be living in that generation.
RK
posted by RK at 3:12 PM
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