After Wembley, AR Rahman's Mumbai concert also leaves fans fuming

Mumbai: It's not always the flamboyant film personalities who become a part of controversies, and even some of the reserved ones can't help but fall in them sometimes.

A R Rahman is not one you’d like to associate with too many controversies, but the music maestro has unfortunately got embroiled in few of them recently, mainly for his concerts.

His concert at Wembley in July this year had faced Twitter outrage as he had performed way too many songs in Tamil.

While you could blame Rahman for his choice of songs in that case, this time it was the arrangements related to the event that did the damage.

As part of his Encore tour of multi-city concerts, Rahman performed in Mumbai on Sunday, but fans were left fuming over the seating arrangements and sound quality, according to a report in Mid-day.

One of the fans, Khushal Lalwani told the tabloid, "I couldn't find my seat for the first hour, as the seating arrangement was all over the place. I watched half the event standing despite having paid for a seat. Strangely, the height of the stage was so low that you couldn't see the performers."

Another fan, Aly Rana, who expected closer view of the concert, considering he had spent Rs 5000 for platinum tickets was also disappointed.

“As I walked towards my seat, I saw that the platinum seats were at quite a distance from the stage. People huddled up in front of the rows, and I could barely see anything happening on the stage," Rana was quoted as saying.

He added, "The sound quality was pathetic. It is probably the worst concert I have attended."

One of the others who attended the concert, Parool Shah revealed that Rahman also got aware about the disgruntlement from fans, but his reaction to it could’ve hardly saved the situation.

She said, "Sensing the audience disgruntled about the mismanagement, Rahman said that if you can't see me, just enjoy listening to my music. If I had to do that, I could have listened to his songs on a music system. Plus, he hardly performed for half an hour."

Bookmyshow, the ticketing and event partner, however, had a different story to tell.

"The ground partner made alterations in the seating arrangements two days prior to the show due to technical issues. We informed our customers of the change via emails and texts on Saturday. As for the sound, it was much advanced compared to the regular arrangements for such shows."

Rahman will be completing his Encore tour in Delhi on 23 December, and we hope fans are a satisfied lot there.