Norah Jones

I knew she was a bit short, but when she came on stage in a lazy sweatshirt and jeans, you might wonder if she is just out of school. The concert was to start at 19 00 hours and I made a foolish mistake of taking that 1900 hours seriously. I was there in the hall 18 55 hours and I knew something was wrong when the entire hall was empty except for maybe 20 odd people (max) sitting in their chairs. I got curious and enquired if the concert is at 1900 and I was told by the usher in a polite tone that the concert will start around 9 or 9 30 pm and there will be another cover artist who will perform from 8 pm to 9 pm.
The chair was small uneasy when I wondered how am I going to kill time for another couple of hours, but things coasted when I took out my mp3 player and started listening to the usual dosage of LedZep. The flipside of the ticket had lots of instructions and one of them included come early and the organizers reserve the right to reject admission for latecomers. Damn, I took those words a bit too seriously and I was there on time like a school kid. Another instruction was 'do not carry any cameras and audience will not be admitted with objectionable materials'. I decided not to take my camera. Guess what, once Norah came on stage cameras of different models came out of people's hands and lots of lightning like flashes came in :-(
Quite disappointing, but was glad there was no other disappointments.
When the concert started at 8 pm, Norah sang some duets (those typical country/jazz/school rhythms) along with the cover singer and disappeared soon leaving the male cover singer to sing for another 30-45 minutes. I think Norah might have reached the venue just then and without reaching the make-up room she would have appeared on stage (so that she is not too late :-) ) and later get out of stage via backdoor for a makeup and reappear for the actual concert later around 9 pm.
And she came, this time she looked like a doll with the bright red gown. She was interacting constantly with the audience and it was more like Wimbledon-style i.e someone from the backbench gets her attention after the backbencher shouts 'norah, i love you.. ' or '..you are beautiful..' and she replies 'yeah.. i know..' with giggles all around.
She started with her hit 'Come away with me.. ' song and I was glad since it was one of those very few songs that I know which belonged to Norah. I guess she has an amazing fondess to country music style singing or maybe school rhythms, somehow songs of these genre kept coming after the initial song. I thought she was losing the audience with these slow songs, then came the interval. After the break, she starts performing funnier tracks and used drums a lot more effectively. Once the drums tempo came-in, the crowd started clapping and the concert became more livelier than ever.
The lighting was spectacular i.e not much fanfare but yet so lively. Norah comes across more of a country singer rather than a jazz singer at times. I guess the best part of the show was when she announced 'that this is the last song of the day' and performed 'sunshine .. sunshine.. ' and she and her entire troupe kind of performed a bow and she was on her way out. But, most of the audience did not move, I guess most of the audience knew the trick that she will always be back to perform one or two songs extra after she threatens to leave by claiming that this is the last song. And she came in again with the entire band and performed two more songs.
Some trivia on Norah, she was born to Pandit Ravi Shankar and Sue Jones(a NY musician). Her birth name is Geethali.Ravi Shankar and Sue got divorced early in her life. Her relationship with her father is stormy. Her father had played in Woodstock 1969 music festival and performed alongside 'the beatles' in 60s. I guess the genius in Norah was always there with this kind of background.