Concert for George

December 7, 2004

Shiva here:

On Sunday night my local PBS station played the Concert for George. This was when George Harrisons friends put on a Concert at Londons Royal Albert Hall to play George Harrisons music.

Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Ravi Shankar and His daughter on Sitar, and a host of musicians including some 30 or so Indian musicians put on an awesome show.

The highlights of the show were: the very beginning where a bunch of Indians chanted an a cappella mantra that set the mood for the concert. Then after a while there was a segment of Indian music. They interviewed Ravi Shankar who had arranged and written the Indian music for the event. He explained the composition he had written was called "Jai Raj Hari's Son". He said that he called George "Jai Raj" when they were together, and that Hari was a another name for Krishna, and that George Loved Krishna, so that the composition was about George's love of Krishna.

Then the song began. They had a multitude of instruments and singers, the song was sung like a mantra, with a singer and then a chorus repeating what the singer had sung. It was enchanting and gorgeous, it was the high point of the evening up until that moment, in the middle of the composition they started the Maha Mantra and kept it going for awhile, the audience which had been somewhat subdued up to that point began to get ecstatic, the music and chanting was delicious and hypnotic.

Right near the end of this Eric Clapton joined, playing a raga style lead on an acoustic guitar.

Right after they finished the audience erupted, they were ecstatic.

Then the rest of the western musician picked up their instruments and they broke into "My sweet Lord", the audience erupted in cheers and began dancing. At the point where the chorus started into "Hallelujah" the place became totally ecstatic, you could feel the energy even through the T.V. Then when they started with the Maha Mantra part of the song you could see everyone dancing and chanting, they were in ecstacy. The British and European elite were at the concert dancing and chanting with some of the worlds best musicians, you could feel the ecstacy, it was a powerful kirtan.

It's playing again on my local PBS station later in the week. See it if you can.

Here is the Concert for George website.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/concertgeorge/

I assume it's playing all around the country, at this site you can find the broadcast schedule for PBS for your area.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/broadcast/broadcast.html

It will list a show called "Great Performances", you will have to click on that on the schedule to see if it is the Concert for George and not some other concert.