The venue was a beautiful performing arts theater in Long Beach very close to the beach.
The concert was sold out. Any Indian event needs to have food, so we had fast food bring sold outside in the hall. It is not fair for the first performer as many people are still eating their food while the show starts.
Every location has their unique audience and how an artist is appreciated does vary with the kind of audience. Majority of the LA audience seem to be 30+ from what I could see.
The LA audience was quite appreciative for all the performances. All the Indian Idols surely felt loved and appreciated. How the appreciation is showered did vary for each artist, the songs they sang and their singing style.
How was Aru appreciated - The way I felt about Aru’s performances is that for lot of the audience it was like you are tasting fine wine, each song is uniquely crafted, has a unique color, flavor, aroma, taste and you process this heady concoction, get mesmerized and be in a beautiful trance state. In this beautiful state you don’t show a lot of emotions like gyrate your hips, run towards the stage for a selfie 😃 …..The appreciation was very much there but more passive. Another analogy for this state is how the Zee Bangla judges reacted after Aru had sung “Kuhu kuhu bole koyalia” - can’t translate K. Sanu’s Bengali comments - that’s what I felt after some of her renditions.
With some other performers, for some audiences it was like drinking tequila shots and hence the way they are appreciated was more animated and is more visual, noisier for any onlooker, video watchers.
The capacity of the theater was 3000. So 300-400 of this animated audience can change the perception of how artists are appreciated.
I am no way saying one is better than the other, each is a form of appreciation and all the Indian Idols were loved for who they were. For me the taste of fine wine stays with you, gets better and better with age, you forget the tequila shots the same day. My theory is that this is why you see Aru’s videos getting so much traction - her audience keeps on drinking the wine and it gets better and better the more you listen over time. .
Hats off to all these Indian idols, they had a grueling schedule and to consistently perform at this level with the intensity and the energy deserves accolades and salute. They are having fun too while at it. They were at Times Square at 3 am going crazy and then they performed amazingly the same evening in LA
The audio did have issues - don't know what was wrong but some of the voices came out to be too loud specially when Danish was singing. I had to close my ears.
Do let me know if you have more questions on the concert. I would love to answer and in a way make progress to getting out of the newbie status 😉
A wonderful description of, what must have been, a wonderful night!
I will always hope that Arunita's audience is of the passive, appreciative, type. Her songs deserve the attention and respect.
I wonder how it would be to listen to her alone, with the right accompaniment, as she sings Lata/Shreya/Asha/Alka/Arunita in front of an audience who sit tight and appreciate only the high points of her craft with feelings.
I have spent great nights, when some legends sang, and the only sound from the audience were the wah-wah's when a particular intricate passage was masterfully executed. That audience is rarer these days, but thankfully, for me, Kolkata city still has geriatrics like me in numbers who attend such events. I would love to hear Arunita singing melody at a solo night in front of such an audience.
I had heard (Neeraj Kalkar again! ) that PD has a booming voice which is hard to control electronically and Danish anyway is too loud in his rather shrill voice. That may explain the audio issues. The technician at the controls has to be top class to get it just right for the listeners.
Now, Newbie status related 
:
How was Arunita on stage? Is she stiff? She does look rather reserved compared to the others when we see the videos. Is that the impression you got?
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