Showdown...

And so we arrived at the finals stages of the KroaKing thing. The place was packed, people were rocking and every contestant had a goodly fan following and a tag-along crowd. The solidarity each group showed towards their mascot was unbelievable. But then, as Carlton said early in the evening, we were a music loving crowd. We just cheered everyone on, some more than others but what the hell...

The beginning saw a strange reversal of the order of arrivals. People began trooping in at 7:45 PM while 2 of the contestants strolled in at 9:45!! Interesting strategy I thought. Maybe they thought the prize was a watch or something...

Anyway, once all the slots were filled, the night was kicked off by none other than Hottie and Shortie. Their ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ gave people, contestants and audience alike, what they needed - blessed release from the nameless but yet tangible tension that gripped the air.

You know, for all the accomplishments of the singers yesterday and for all that they have sung on that stage to very similar audiences before, I don’t think there was even one singer who wasn’t holding something back. I’ve had the privilege of watching and listening to all of those 12 singers at times prior to this and to me, not even one of them hit the mark. Not even close. Sure they might not have done anything wrong (well, most of them didn’t anyway) but...

I’m not sure what the reason for this might be, although I have a voice in my head telling me to shut up and that I’ll find out soon enough. I’ve touched upon this topic before and I’ll say it again - The contest seemed to have leached away the fun from the evening. Not for the audience. We enjoyed it thoroughly. I’m talking about the contestants. It was very weird.

On the whole, a nice evening, a decent ‘beginning of the end’, an eclectic range of songs and voices. But a minor anticlimax.

Vivek Madan