Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to celebrate 25 years in Bollywood with a concert at Expo 2020 Dubai

These seminal movies would never have been the same had it not been for their collective sounds of music.

With the 25-year milestone upon them, what better place than Expo 2020 Dubai to celebrate their momentous career? On February 4, singer Shankar Mahadevan, guitarist Ehsaan Noorani and keyboard player Loy Mendonsa will belt out their biggest hits on the Jubilee Stage.

“Our biggest problem is to decide what songs not to sing and what to cut out … It’s going to be a highly interactive show. We will do our popular songs like ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ and ‘Bunty Aur Babli’,” Mahadeven told Gulf News over Zoom ahead of their UAE concert. His close friend Noorani, who joined on the call, also said they have at least 40 chart toppers in their repertoire and cherry-picking what to sing has been their toughest job.

Excerpts from our interview with Mahadevan and Noorani, ahead of their show, which is free to attend as long as you have Expo2020 entry tickets.

Congratulations! Did you ever think that your association would last this long? Bands breaking up is quite common …

Mahadevan: We know each other for more time, but we have been doing films together for 25 years now. But this whole idea of a break-up isn’t even a part of our thought process. [The] three of us are strong and individual musicians in our own right. But we have our own lives and we are mature about it … It is like how you work on a marriage. It’s like you are with your partner from Monday to Saturday and you are working together every single day to make it work. It takes that kind of effort. And we have never brought up that energy about breaking up. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t fight like crazy. We fight like kids and we argue a lot. It’s like we are in a boxing ring with our gloves on, but it’s all for making a good song.

Noorani: When we put this together we didn’t know we would be here. We were supposed to make our Bollywood music debut with ‘Dus’ but its director Mukul Anand passed away … But we continued to do what we were doing. But suddenly, things started to happen. It was fated.

How does it feel to perform at a public concert after we saw a pandemic dominating our lives?

Mahadevan: I love Dubai and we come there multiple times in a year. And we are very excited to perform at the Expo 2020 Dubai because there’s so much happening there. It’s a wonderful environment that they have created. And to know it’s an open stage with us facing the public is very exciting.

Noorani: The jitters is not about performing as it comes like our second nature to us. And, we have been doing a few corporate gigs. But it’s the thought of doing these 100 tests [COVID-19] before going to the airport, at the airport, then in the city and then before you leave again that gives you the jitters.

How do you three go about choosing films that you compose the music for? Is it the director or the script that’s the deciding factor?

Noorani: The directors who come to us — be it Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Meghna Gulzar or Rakeysh OmPrakash Mehra — are those who have similar sensibilities like us and they want to push the envelope with their films.

Mahadevan: Plus, these directors are our returning customers. Clearly they are happy with our output. These directors will come to you only if our work is good. It’s all about the vibe that you develop with a director. You spent almost two years from the start to the finish of a film, so it’s all about the vibe. And, at the end of the day we need to be satisfied with the work we do

What are your defining traits that you have observed in each other?

Noorani: Shankar is the stable one, while Loy and I are the unstable ones. We are a mixed bag of people and that’s what makes us work … But we have figured each other out well.

Mahadevan: Three of us are crazy and our whole environment changes every day. We are like chameleons.