'SPB lives on with his songs and this is what we are celebrating’

A year-long series of concerts has kept legendary singer SP Balasubrahmanyam’s music alive. The brainchild of Bengalurean Arun Kumar, SPB’s drummer who knew him for over 20 years, and fellow musician Girish, the grand finale will be held on December 15 at 6.30 pm at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, where SPB’s last concert was held.
The concert series were hosted online every month for one year, starting October 2020, as a tribute to the late singer, who passed away in September 2020.Title ‘SPB — Ondu Nenapu’, the monthly concerts that were streamed on social media platforms featured well-known artistes, such as Vijay Prakash, Anoor Ananth Krishna Sharma, Praveen Godkhindi, Hemanth Kumar, Nanditha Rakesh, Shamitha Malnad, Varijashree Venugopal, Archana Udupa, Praveen D Rao, Surekha, ReMo, Divya Raghavan, Mangala Ravi, Ajay Warrier, Badri Prasad, Vani Harikrishna, Usha Umesh and Lakshmi Vijay. “I have toured the world with SPB sir and he was a father figure to me. I wanted to do something to celebrate him and his songs, so Girish and I came up with the idea of monthly concerts. Fourteen of SPB sir’s songs in languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi were performed in each episode. SPB was not only a great singer, but a gem of a person. He touched many people’s lives with his kindness and generosity, which is why the people we approached readily agreed to perform at the concerts — no questions asked. They didn’t even charge anything. Actually, everyone who helped put this together, from camerapersons to the venue, charged us a minimal amount to nothing. And they didn’t do this for me, but for SPB sir,” says Arun.
The main intention behind the concerts was to celebrate the singer and person that SPB was. While the initial idea was to do just online concerts, a big finale to wrap up the series at Chowdiah Memorial Hall only seemed apt.
Arun is looking to continue this and take the concerts across India. “SPB sir has sung 40,000 songs, which I can perform for 25 years! These concerts have shown us that SPB sir lives on and that people will continue to enjoy his songs,” adds Arun.
Performing at the free-to-attend concert on December 15 are SPB Charan (SPB’s son), Rajesh Krishnan, Vijay Prakash and MD Pallavi, among other celebrity artistes.