Mathappu.. A sparkling "light" music

A music filled evening was waiting for us last Saturday(Nov 11, 2006) at the CET theater for performing arts in San Jose. Thillana, comprising of some very talented artists from the San Francisco Bay area was performing a light music concert to raise funds for Cancer Institute foundation in India. We made it to the concert just in time after loosing the way to the hall not once but twice.
The concert started in earnest with a devotional number sung exceptionally well by one of the veteran artist Kavitha. Her voice echoed the decibels of KB.Sundarambaal who sang the original number and that did complete justice to the song. It was a sizzling start to the next 3 hours of foot taping numbers. It was then followed by some evergreen numbers from the rest of the Thillanites. The first half of the show displayed the exceptional talents in each artist to bring out some rare gems as close as possible to the original numbers. The second half was comprised of fun filled "gaana" numbers to force the audience to their feet and dance their heart out. I happened to be seated in the midst of a dance group in the balcony and got a treat of some rave dance numbers for the foot tapping music.
The song selection was very good. They moved the dance numbers to the second half and I thought that was an astute move. The audience were fed well during dinner and were all ready to blast. They also made sure to add some sweet as part of the dinner to feed in some sugar into our systems. The audio mixing was exceptional. In many live music concerts, I find that the singers voice gets drowned in the instrument sounds. But in this concert, I was able to hear the singers very clearly and the balance between the voice and instruments were just about perfect. A great job there. Introducing each artist in the middle of the song as they were performing and repeating it through the entire show was innovative. This gave the audience a chance to remember each artist's name and I can easily name every artist that performed on stage, during the show and even 2 days after the show as I am typing this out. The production team did a great job with the props. The thematic representation of "Mathappu" was just perfect.
There is always room for improvements. I did feel a shortage of lead singers in the group. Especially a male voice for "gaana" songs was missing. None of the existing male voices suited well for the "gaana" songs. Someone with a folk music background could have handled it better. This in no way undermines the effort put in by each of the singer. Everyone did a stellar job. I also felt that the lighting could have been handled a little better. The stage needed more lights.
I would rate the show an overall of 4.5 out of 5. It was a great show and I will surely be looking out for their next show. Keep up the good work guys!!!