A tribute live concert on yesteryear’s legendry singer Kishore Kumar was declared super hit after it got sold out days before the show and received a full house occupancy.

‘Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas’ at SkyCity Theatre on Saturday, November 28 received excellent reviews and as the audience joined the ensemble cast of musicians and singer and some even received a standing ovation for the performances.

The show was organised by famous Kiwi Indian singer Gopal Bhatia who has done several such performances in Auckland and has shared the stage with singing legends such as Asha Bhosle and worked with renowned Indian singers and music directors back In India.

“We had less than a score tickets left a week before the concert and just a few days to the show- it became sold out; we had to politely close our ticketing as we had reached the full capacity of just over 750 seats of the auditorium,” Gopal Bhatia told The Indian Weekender.

The production, performances, music of the show was lauded the audience for giving them a perfect evening of evergreen songs of Kishore Kumar.

Named after the famous song ‘Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas’ from the 1973 hit film ‘Blackmail’, the tribute show played 28 songs of Kishore Kumar from his discography between the early 1960s to late 1980s.

“As we had announced the show a few months ago, we definitely were nervous about the happening of the event as Covid had cancelled or postponed so many events this year with less than a week’s notice.

“Fortunately, we were past Covid community restrictions but now, since this was the first and perhaps the only live concert based on a tribute to the legendry singer Kishore Kumar in 2020, the expectations were quite high, and we knew we had to give the best live concert our of hero the community had ever seen,” Mr Bhatia added.

Besides individual hit numbers sang by several other local artists such as Arpita Chandra, Jayshree Sitaraman, Gopal Nair, Rachit Bhatia, Ankita Ghatani & Varun, a medley and unplugged versions of Kishore Kumar’s other hit songs were also sung by the performers.

While the performances echoed in the auditorium, an artist, Tony McNeight, brought by the organisers drew multiple sketches of legend Kishore Kumar on the stage as show simultaneously progressed.

“I must add, the orchestra did an exemplary job with their music supporting each and every singer. They were spot on and just perfect,” Mr Bhatia added.

Gopal Bhatia on the night of the show announced that he is coming up with his next live concert, a tribute to another great, Mohammed Rafi in July 2021 at the same venue.

“We knew stakes were high this time and we delivered better than what was expected out of us- and just so we can keep up the momentum, we announced another tribute concert for Md Rafi Sb in July next year.

“People were pleased with our show last week, and there was a resounding cheer when we announced the next concert at the end of the show in the auditorium on Saturday night,” Mr Bhatia added.