Nobody expected the bottom to drop out on A.R. Rahman's world tour.
So, earlier this month, as he embarked on his A.R. Rahman Jai Ho Concert: The Journey Home World Tour, which was scheduled to reach the Forum in Los Angeles on Sunday night, Rahman's plan was twofold: to connect with his adoring Desi — South Asian — fans while also tapping into his newfound popularity among non-Desis, packing sports arenas across North America and Europe along the way.
Steeped in spectacle and exerting a high-tech razzle-dazzle more in step with, say, Lady Gaga than a composer dubbed the "Mozart of Madras," the tour went off without a hitch in New York, New Jersey and Chicago. But disaster struck when Rahman hit Detroit last week
According to artistic director Amy Tinkham, the infrastructure at the Motor City's Pontiac Silverdome was not strong enough to support a lighting rig and buckled beneath its weight. The apparatus came crashing down, destroying part of the stage. Worse still, equipment and sets specially designed for the tour were rendered unusable.
"It's a miracle my team escaped with minor injuries," Rahman tweeted.
After initially postponing dates in Detroit and Toronto, Rahman made the agonising decision to postpone his remaining North American tour.
The predicament represents a significant setback for Rahman in his quest to connect with Western audiences.
Reached by phone in Chicago earlier this month, before his Detroit set disaster, the soft-spoken composer, 44, acknowledged that he might have been slow off the mark to capitalise on that momentum with a world tour. "In practice, it should have been last year," Rahman said. "But creatively, we needed time to put this together."
Rahman's manager Amos Newman said before the Pontiac Silverdome mishap that the tour was to be a sort of introduction to American audiences. "His shows in the past were very much geared for Indian audiences. This show was designed for everybody. We intentionally designed the show to appeal even to someone unaware of who Rahman is."
Regardless of the tour's postponement, Rahman has already begun carving a presence for himself outside the subcontinent by collaborating with such pop luminaries as M.I.A. and Kylie Minogue as well as lending his vocals to the star-studded charity single We Are the World 25 for Haiti.
But in the short run, Rahman and tour producers have their hands full trying to pick up the broken pieces for the remaining European dates.
"All the artists, singers, musicians, dancers, technicians [myself included] have been almost given a second life," Rahman said in a statement. "Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, as we will have the opportunity to perform for you with even more energy and perfection."
