Sunday evening brought in unexpected heavy showers but that didn’t stop Museum Theatre from being packed to the gills with a very appreciative audience — an interesting mix of young and old! What they witnessed was a spirited performance, simply titled Rewind 5, of a selection of English hits from the 1960s onwards.
The Museum Theatre is at its acoustic best when all the seats are full. You can sit anywhere in the theatre and enjoy excellent sound quality. This was provided in good measure by the backing band comprising Judah on lead guitar, Gerard Joseph on bass guitar, Nelson Samuel and Anish Chacko on keyboards and Immanuel Theophles on drums. The 27 songs of the evening were performed by well-known singers Sumitha, Sunethra, Naren, Rithika, Krithika, Rajesh, Namitha, Gerard, Tarini, Anjana and Krishna. Needless to say, it was a string of unchained melodies throughout the two-hour show.
Surely the highlight of the evening were songs such as ‘Those Were The Days’, ‘Sugar Sugar’, ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, ‘Top Of The World’, ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’, ‘Imagine’, ‘Mustang Sally’, ‘More Than Words’ and ‘Skyfall’. Rajesh’s rendition of ‘Love Letters In The Sand’ evoked the magic of love ballads of yesteryears, so lost in today’s music. So did Krithika’s ‘Stupid Cupid’. Tarini’s rendition of ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ from Lion King brought back memories of the stunning animation of the film. Krishna’s version of the George Harrison song ‘Set My Mind On You’ was a little disappointing though. While Naren didn’t do full justice to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely’, he was in his elements rendering Wilson Pickett’s ‘Mustang Sally’.
For the generation of yesterday, Rewind 5 rekindled the magic of Mary Hopkins, Shirley Bassey, Jim Reeves, John Lennon, Carpenters, Harry Belafonte, Eddie Rabbit and more. Rewind 5, seems to have done a wonderful job, five years in a row. Let’s hope that the magic will live on forever.
