'Slumdog' musician offers diverse show

A.R. Rahman proudly challenged fans Friday night at the Sears Centre with the unenviable task of tucking his music neatly into a specific genre.

Describing his Hoffman Estates show proves difficult because the Grammy and Oscar winner clearly wanted to appeal to a wide demographic; the young and old, the English-speaking and fans familiar with his Indian-language works.

Another challenge is keeping the audience entertained for 21/2 hours with enough material to pique their interest. There was no opening band. Rahman's show borrowed the sounds of classical Indian artists as a tribute, as well as a mix of modern Western performers. A rendition of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" was accompanied by break dancing and plenty of moonwalking. Though the sounds didn't match up, a number included a trio of singers emulating the Black Eyed Peas.

As a celebration of Indian heritage, the show excelled, giving expatriates reasons to cheer, even with the obligatory Gandhi image projected over the stage.

That pleased the throngs of sari-clad women dressed to impress and their mates seemingly trapped in a 1990s-style Bollywood flick. Parts of the show did drag, but the material from "Slumdog Millionaire" recharged the crowd, ending with "Jai Ho!" as the finale.

The production certainly had no shortage of ambition as the courage to mix musical styles comes with the potential for failure. For example, there's no reason a man wearing a dhoti, a traditional Indian leg wrap, should be strumming power chords on a guitar. But somehow it worked without coming off cheap.

Set pieces bombarded the stage with vibrant pastels and dizzying 3-D effects. The production owed much to Cirque du Soleil with a supply of acrobats and ribbons. And like a Cirque show, it didn't matter if the audience could follow the story, a definite boon for the fans who only understood English. Music again proved the universal language.

Keeping a tighter focus for the show's theme may make sense for Rahman, but it would fly in the face of his musical style, which embraces such a variety of influences. In the end, the final product appears to have achieved just what his vision sought out.