The lights dimmed, the hum of the speakers dropped, the audience fell into a hush after the rousing cheers as the band took centrestage and went on to pour out a deluge of musical magic. The Clinton Cerejo Band’s concert at The Hindu Friday Review November Fest at the Good Shepherd Auditorium was nothing short of enchantment as the celebrated Sufi pop/Bollywood music icon and his band performed from a repertoire of epic hits to a fantastic audience.
Accompanied by the rich voices of Bianca Gomes and Sudeep Jaipurwale, the Clinton Cerejo band comprising Beven Fonseca on keyboards, Sonu Sangameshwar on the bass guitar, Manoj Thapliyal on the drums and Niranjan ‘Pozy’ Dhar on the electric guitar kicked off to a stormy start with the song ‘Marghat’.
The award winning composer, producer and singer notched up the song frenzy among the spellbound audience with the famous ‘Banjara’ from his Coke Studio fame which had many in the audience singing along. Strumming along with his acoustic guitar, Clinton’s flamboyant vocals and Sudeep’s ethereal classical voice rendered a real musical treat for music lovers at the concert.
Recalling the story behind the next song, Clinton said this piece helped him learn that music transcends all lingual barriers since he performed this song with Sindhi-speaking Sawan Khan from the Manganiyar folk music background. Recreating the pure magic in the studio, the band performed ‘Saathi Salaam’ in pitch-perfect nuance.
The next story is an evolved version of a turned-down Airtel Blackberry jingle which later became the popular composition for Coke Studio – ‘Mauje Naina’. The melody-rich composition sung with Bianca was a mesmerising musical extravagance. ‘Aisi Bani’ followed in similar tonality. Getting the audience to sing along to ‘Ek Kalapi’, the virtuosic band turned up the frenzy with their brilliantly co-ordinated performance.
Bringing the audience to their feet and to the front in front of the stage, Clinton called them out to sing ‘Hey Ya’ from the movie, Karthik Calling Karthik .
The crowd never stopped swaying to the music as Clinton paved way for a favourite among the audience – ‘Dil Toh Bachcha Hai’. The remixed version of the song did not fail to make hearts soar and make everyone feel like a child at heart as they danced and sang away in front of the stage.
Shifting gears, Clinton moved to Tamil territory with a song from the recent hit movie Raja Rani before moving on to the classic hit song ‘Endrendrum Punnagai’, surprising the audience since many did not know that he sang it. Singing along in the Hindi version, Clinton carried the crowd on with ’Manhattan’ from the movie English Vinglish sung in harmonic ecstasy.
Dimming the lights in the auditorium, Clinton had the audience turn on the torches in the phones and sway them as the band went on to perform a mashup of Metallica’s legendary ‘Nothing Else Matters’ along with ‘Baanware’. The band then rendered ‘Musafir Hai’, a ballad from a movie not yet released giving Bangalore’s music lovers the privilege of being its first public listeners.
Bringing the house down with the final song to repeated appeals for an encore from the audience, Clinton came back on stage to perform ‘Kya Karoon’ from Wake Up Sid in mellifluous fantasy leaving the audience with good memories to carry home.
