By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, March 20: Rains and concerts in Shillong have almost become synonymous, but on Wednesday, Shillong was able to checkmate the weather from playing spoilsport because the much-awaited Calum Scott concert was organised in Lariti as an indoor event with limited seating capacity.
Calum Scott, who rose to fame with his rendition of Dancing On My Own on Britain’s Got Talent in 2015, hasn’t looked back ever since and has come up with album after album.
“I rose to fame with my cover song, and people really liked the rendition, and there are several other artists who are doing cover songs. What I want to say is that a good song is a good song, and if you feel it at heart to do a rendition of it, you should,” Scott added while responding to a query by The Shillong Times.
The event was a seated one, but that didn’t stop the Calum lovers from standing up and dancing to his heartfelt songs, ranging from endearing love songs to an emotional song he wrote for his mother.
Scott, dressed in white from head to toe, performed on Wednesday for around a thousand-plus crowd, singing around 10 songs and ending with his two most famous ones, You Are The Reason and Dancing On My Own.
Scott was overwhelmed by the crowd’s response, and an almost teary-eyed Scott said, “This is a dream come true. This is like I am performing for the people who love me and are here to see only me.”
He is fresh from his stint with Ed Sheeran in Mumbai, where he performed for around 40,000 people. What was surprising was one would expect that Scott’s music would mostly be melancholic, but he surprised and delivered with some upbeat numbers, and they also got Vijay Kumar D, Commissioner and Secretary, shaking a leg. When asked why he chose Shillong for his debut performance, Scott said he was told by his friends Armaan Malik and Ronan Keating that Shillong’s music culture is something else, and it would be the best place for him to perform to a plethora of music lovers.
It may be noted that Ronan Keating performed for Cherry Blossom 2023 and, in his words, was ‘taken aback’ by the response of the crowd.
Scott concluded with the song that he rose to fame with, Dancing On My Own, and as he sang But you don’t see me standing here I just came to say goodbye, he muttered, “I am gonna remember this forever,” and the lights dimmed.
The concert was organised by Rockski EMG in collaboration with Meghalaya Tourism.
The Calum Scott concert also saw some other exciting announcements about the winners of the Mega music festival, who are artists Dappest and ADL and are now set to collaborate with Sean Kingston and Akon. They also were presented a cheque of Rs 25 lakh.