Robaroo’11, an Evening with Indian OceanAuthor : Vikram Dadwal
Robaroo'11, an Evening with Indian Ocean
Association for India's Development, Tempe Chapter brings Indian Ocean to the Valley
Rock Concert and nonprofit fundraising, are two activities that don't usually go together. Although in retrospect, both have the same purpose: to infuse freshness, liveliness and exuberance into masses. If you combine the two, you get Roobaroo '11, an evening with Indian Ocean. Yes, that's the fundraiser Rock Fusion Concert organized by Association of India's development (A.I.D), Tempe chapter.
Roobaroo'11 a musical extravaganza was held in the Piper Theater of Mesa Arts center on the evening of September 18th.Indian Ocean, the largely popular band from India played for a packed auditorium. The concert had created a lot of buzz and all ticket categories were sold out a week before the performance. The band is known for its great passion for social work and has been largely active in performing concerts for a worthy cause. The evening started with Rahul Ram and Himanshu Joshi singing ‘Dum Dum Tana' and enthralling the audience with their melodious voice and instrumental beats. This set the tone for the evening with many more sufi, jazz spiced rhythms to follow. Their lead singer Rahul Ram was in his usual jovial mood throughout the concert, engaging and interacting with the audience. As the tempo for the evening was being set, Indian Ocean strung the chords of another popular song – Arre ruk ja re bande from the movie ‘Black Friday'. The lyrics, the vocals and the instrumental on this one can be summarized by just one word: mesmerising. The audience clapped, applauded and cheered the artists as the song got over. Towards the end of the first half, AID president, Nagendran Rangan, gave an informative presentation about the organization.AID, Tempe, which has been working actively in the valley for almost 10years now. AID Tempe has been targeting the various facets of social economic problems in India by supporting projects in various fields like: Education, women empowerment, community relief to name a few areas. Vellore Hill Restoration Project and Eureka Superkids are the current projects being supported on these lines. AID Tempe organizes different types of fund raising events, including upcoming cricket and volleyball tournaments, throughout the year to support their grass root projects in India.
The second half of the concert started with the tunes of Des mera pardesi babu , the peppy number from the Oscar nominated movie Peepli live. The songs had the audience clamoring ‘Once More', but the band had way too many hits to regale the audience than repeat the same song. The highlight of the second half was the Jugalbandi between Rahul Ram on the bass guitar and Amit Kilam playing the Gabgubi, a traditional instrument played in Bengal. This was followed in turn by a jugalbandhi with Susmit Sen, whose uncanny genius and ease in rendering complex pieces of music on his Indianized version of the guitar, makes one assume that playing the guitar is as easy and fun as watching him play himself. They beautifully showcased some of the best instrumental music and sound, each one trying to outplay the other. This was preceded by an interesting and brilliant performance which had the tabla artist, Tuheen Chakravorty, playing percussion on the bass guitar which was controlled at the strings by Rahul Ram, at the same time having a jugal bandhi with Amit Kilam on the drums.
At the end of the concert, AID president thanked all the Artists for such a memorable evening and presented them with mementos. He thanked the Platinum Sponsor Puja Dental Group for their gracious support, Azindia , Asian Express and Asia Today for the media coverage. He also thanked Udipi Café and all other sponsors for advertising in the Concert brochure.AID would also like to thank all of the volunteers for the countless hours of work in making Roobaroo a successful concert.
-Vikram Dadwal