Rahman regal audience with magical tunes at IIFA Rocks

Celebrating 25 years of his musical journey, Rahman rocks New York with his mesmerising performance. He saw the crowd groove to the popular Hindi and Tamil tracks, and this proves that music flows beyond the geographical boundaries.   

Rahman brought the audience to its feet with his Tamil hits "Urvasi urvasi" and "Humma humma", a scene so different from his recent UK concert for which he was trolled on the social media by concert goers who felt there were too many Tamil songs.

There was a demand for an encore even after he regaled the crowd for almost two hours. "What? Once more... I can't hear you... Isn't it too late?," Rahman said on the stage before taking up the micagain to sing "Humma humma". He performed his Oscar-winning hit track "Jai Ho" as the lighting on the stage changed to orange, green and white. "I am thankful to you all for coming and supporting theconcert...love you " he said.

The musical extravaganza, which is part of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards events, celebrated 25 years of Rahman's glorious journey that began with the success of "Roja" in 1992. Rahman was joined by Diljit Dosanjh, Benny Dayal,Javed Ali, Neeti Mohan, Jonita Gandhi and Haricharan Seshadriat the MetLife stadium.

The music maestro teamed up with Mohit Chauhan to croon"Nadaan parindey" while Neeti Mohan and Hariharan joined himfor a duet on "Bin tere kya jeena" and "Mere paas hai tu",respectively.

The other hit numbers from his vast repertoire were "Dilhai chota sa", "Agar tum saath ho", "Aye hairathe", "Terebina" and "Tanha tanha". Punjabi star Diljit's songs "Ek kudi" and "Patiala peg"and Mika Singh's energetic performance brought the audience to their feet. "I am feeling very happy and proud that Rahman called me here. Make some noise for Rahman sir. Love you all,"Mika added.

"I thank him for being an inspiration. I am honoured to be here," Jonita said. Rahman, who recently composed the music for SachinTendulkar's biopic, asked the crowd, do you like cricket, doyou like Sachin?, before singing the title track of the filmas the master blaster's photograph was displayed on the screen.