I accept every compliment you have hurled at me. Would you care to refute my review before being so generous with me?

One interesting question:
Does it prove that much of the blogosphere in India is still monitored and controlled by (almost) the same social elite who go to the kacheris?

You raise interesting points. Let me respond in a separate post. This is a promise.

And thanks a ton for that link. I liked it.

I’m not sure. Except for a few people like me (who was there just for the listening pleasure, knowing nothing about raagas or taalas except for a one year training in Karnatik), there were quite a lot of people who seemed to have genuine interest and in-depth knowledge in Karnatik music. The programme was restricted by entry pass and the audience was mostly the members of Thaalam. I think the Thaalam members are genuinely interested in music and dance forms. I could see many of the old people were putting thaalam along. Then there were even foreigners like Prem Manasvi who has a keen interest in the Indian art forms. But after the 30 minutes or so, I could see many of them were moving out, murmuring.

Thrissur (in Kerala) do not have much Sangeetha sabhas (I think only one or two) and the only chance the interested public has access to is this kind of musical festivals or the week long programmes organized in the Vadakkumnathan temple during the Sivaraathri week. So I think these ‘celebrities’ should take that into consideration regardless of the audience.

And also, I don’t find anything wrong in musicians playing before the ignorant public too (with some tricks like playing some semi-classical filmy numbers in between if needed). I think in the long run, it will only help classical music to have a larger audience. I, for one, begun with listening to Yesudas’ semi-classical filmy songs.

My bias might be sad but that’s your perception and you are entitled to it just like the way I’m entitled to my bias.

>>If you were really at the concert, you would have seen that the response he got from the audience for his set was more than the other three sets combined.
Have you read my review fully? Read the FIRST sentence. I don’t care about the audience’s response. I don’t judge the quality of an artiste’s performance based on the applause (or the lack of it) he/she gets.

>>If you don’t know anything about music - stay away.
Your comment makes me want to say the same thing about you. IF you have anything SPECIFIC to say–like about the performance BASED on what you heard there (technical aspects of the performance), please say it instead of assuming my ignorance of music.