Live: Susheela Raman @ Blue Frog

As cynical human beings, we’re often prone to making sweeping judgments about our cultural state of affairs. “Rock ‘n roll is dead”, “No one writes good tunes anymore”, “Backstreet Boys are gay”, et al. And there are plenty of reasons for us to be dismissive, the most compelling of which is that it’s simply the easiest opinion to have. It’s hard to feel wonderment anymore, to be entirely taken by art/music/film/sex/equivalent in a way that’s almost naive and perhaps even child-like. Remember the first time you ate an ice-cream and marvelled as the cold touched your virgin lips and the flavour hit your tongue? Remember that first roller-coaster ride when you were so scared you couldn’t stop screaming but the adrenalin made you crave that it never ends? Remember the first time you heard The Beatles?

Last night Susheela Raman converted an urban audience at the Blue Frog into devotees of her church. For many who didn’t understand the language in which she sang (Tamil), it didn’t matter what she was preaching. As she flung us from one towering crescendo to another, she reached the deepest, darkest corners of our vapid souls and filled them with haunting spells. Fuck your soul-sucking job, fuck your inability to find love, fuck terrorism, fuck indifference, fuck life. Everything else wasn’t given the opportunity to take a back seat. It was ruthlessly flung out the window. Even the most stoic, disparaging beings among us were stirred.

But Susheela Raman is aware of this grip she has. She knows she is the shepherd of this flock. Yet, there is no complacence. Even the cape she wears is strangely fitting, if not majestic. The leader of this suicide cult, she doesn’t wait for the comet to arrive, she summons the comet to her. You can feel the crushing anguish, the throes of ecstasy, the vivid battles in her every inflection. She confronts faith, armed only with her voice and the blind devotion of her believers who would readily follow this possessed shaman off a cliff. Even God cannot ignore.

Her music is a devilish art. It forces one to almost involuntary action. When she cries, “Raise up your hands”, your limbs move without choice. When she looks at you with those piercing, fiery eyes, you are helpless. This is what those struck by the hands of TV evangelists should hope to feel. This overwhelming state of powerlessness. This rebooting of your brain. To experience this mesmerizing a performance is to believe that music can still inspire. All is not lost, there is still hope.

I was moved. Music is not dead. It’s alive. God bless Susheela Raman.

Indiecision: A

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