After U2’s stunning performance at Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium on Sunday, many social media comments talked about it being the best-ever concert in India. The reaction is understandable, as besides the very quality of the music, it surpassed all shows in terms of its sheer scale, even though many couldn’t see the musicians properly and some struggled at the food counters.
Without doubt, it was an extra-memorable night, but was it the best? Maybe yes, maybe no. To answer that, I decided to look back at some of the other outstanding musical events in India. For starters, I’ve chosen shows held after 1990, on the condition that they took place at large, open-air venues. The acts included Michael Jackson, Jethro Tull, Scorpions, Roger Waters, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Yanni, Iron Maiden, Mark Knopfler, Elton John, Enrique Iglesias, Aerosmith, Ricky Martin, Joe Zawinul, Bryan Adams, Shakira and U2. Since I missed Guns N’ Roses, Slash, Dream Theater and Metallica, I’ve sadly left them out.
Musical decades
I looked at five parameters - frontman, choice/ flow of songs, musicianship, production/ sound, and overall audience experience. The top three shows thus boiled down to Michael Jackson in Mumbai on November 1 1996, Roger Waters in Bangalore on April 13 2002, and U2 in Mumbai on December 15 2019. By pure chance, each decade was represented by one act.
Rating each parameter on a scale of 10, Michael Jackson got 10 for frontman, 9 for choice of songs, 9 for musicianship, 10 for production/ sound, and 8 for audience experience. The highlights were the flow, the larger-than-life stage set-up, his dancing, ‘Earth Song’ and his entertainment quotient. The downside: was too many opening acts - Bally Sagoo, Sharon Prabhakar and Noble Savages. Average rating: 9.2.
Roger Waters, who attracted trains full of fans from across India, scored 8 for frontman, 8 for choice of songs, 9 for musicianship, 10 for production/ sound and 9 for audience experience. The plus points were the nostalgia value, the sound effects and the ‘Comfortaby Numb’ encore. The drawback was he chose too many solo songs which many fans didn’t look forward to. Average rating: 8.8.
Concert milestones
Coming to U2, the scores were 10 for frontman Bono, 9 for choice of songs, 10 for musicianship, 9 for production/ sound and 7 for audience experience. The pluses were Bono’s sheer command, the tight musicianship, rock star Noel Gallagher’s surprise entry, ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’ and the visuals. The negatives were the location, shoddy handling of food counters and A.R. Rahman's out-of-place appearance. Average rating: 9.0.
Of course, this is a personal report card, and everybody will have their own findings. The Scorpions, Joe Zawinul, Jethro Tull, the Rolling Stones, Yanni, Deep Purple and Mark Knopfler completed my top 10, in that order. It would be interesting to find out the scores of many other fans. I would still give the Michael Jackson show an edge over U2 and Waters, and the best thing was that those days, nobody had the set-list in advance. Now, people knew the titles of some U2 songs even if they hadn’t heard them before.
