Shreya enraptures Auckland

If her honeyed, silken voice mesmerised the choc-a-bloc audience leaving it asking for more at the end of her four-hour power-packed performance, it was Shreya Ghoshal’s endearingly straight-from-the-heart, down-to-earth manner of connecting with her fans that had her walk right into their hearts on Friday night.

The seven times national award winner and Bollywood’s most sought after female voice gave Kiwi Indians the kind of performance that will undoubtedly be remembered for a long time to come.

She established a connection with the audience from the word go with her candid natter that included generous praise for New Zealand, Kiwis and of course Kiwi Indians and carried her fans all along with her no-nonsense, girl-next-door demeanour to the very end; cajoling, coaxing and prodding them to sing with her - which they did with great enthusiasm.

She reeled off her repertoire with great energy and vigour accompanied by a talented set of musicians from India and the award winning, refreshingly youthful voice of Shivprasad Mallya. From the alluring “Teri Ore”, through the pining “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai”, the heady “Jaadu hai nashaa hai” to the peppy “Bahaara” and the foot-tapping number from “Jab we met” (of which she gave an encore), Shreya enveloped the audience in the range of moods her songs portrayed.

Post-interval, Shreya continued with such favourites as “Pal har pal”, “Barso re megha”, “Zoobi doobi”, “Hum to aise hain bhaiyya” and many more. She sang a personal favourite from the 1970s film Aandhi “tere bina zindagi se koi” and later took on requests pleasing almost every section of the audience with songs in her native Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Punjabi. The immortal Marathi song “Reshamachya dhagyani” had the audience in raptures to the beat of talented percussionist Uday Parab’s dholak.

Shreya kept the audience on its toes with rapid-fire medleys, though many must have hoped she had sung each of the numbers fully. She rounded off the spectacular night with her legendary “Dola re” from Devdas, her debut song that catapulted her on to the major league bringing her the first of a string of accolades at the very beginning of her singing career.

Nitin Bhandarkar’s fine stand up comedy performance provided excellent relief before the break. His impersonation of yesteryear stars like Amol Palekar, Dev Anand and Manoj Kumar were perfect while Sanjay Dutt, Nana Patekar and Kishore Kumar had the audience in absolute splits.

The ABC Entertainment and Harmony Productions organised event presented by Indian Weekender and Uttam Fresh & Clean was managed brilliantly by Cultural Forum of India’s Ram Iyer. Unlike a recent concert that was ridden by unruly scenes at the start of the concert because of faulty ticketing that needed police intervention, Shreya’s concert went off like a dream, with the audience lapping up every moment of her magical performance.

Small wonder that the audience wanted more of it with many voicing their wish that Shreya return soon for an encore.