A musical night in Hyderabad

The third day of Times Hyderabad Festival saw a one-of-its-kind jugalbandi between Jazz maestro Louis Banks, zitarist Niladri Kumar and percussionist Sivamani.
Held at Mountain Heights, the city’s music enthusiasts saw Asia Electric kick start the event with their compositions like “Trishul” and “Diya”, followed by “Jimi comes to India” that set the mood for the evening.
Sivamani’s solo performance saw the audience go berserk — the crowd got into a jugalbandi with him — hooting, whistling, clapping in response as he gave them a beat and waited for them to replicate it! Niladri and Sivamani’s rendition of “Raghupati Raghav Rajaram”, “Smoke On The Water” and the “Top Gun” theme song that were absolutely flawless and breathtaking, sent the audience into raptures.
Speaking after the show, Niladri Kumar said, “For an artiste, the crowd response is very important. I’m totally overwhelmed by the response that we got from Hyderabad.” A much-elated Louis Banks said, “The response to our concert has been phenomenal. The crowd totally got into the music. Niladri is a total rock star and I could see the audience appreciating his performance. I’m looking forward to playing in Hyderabad again.”
The hospitality partner for the festival is Aditya Sarovar Premiere.
Spotted: Deepa Gupta, Dinaz, Ganesh Nallari, Chaitanya, RK Shenoy, among others.