A.R. Rahman at Patriot Center

In India, movies are the fountainhead of popular entertainment, spawning hit songs and stage spectaculars. The latter usually star popular actors, who lip-sync to the recordings of vocalists known as "playback singers." In recent years, however, the makers of "filmi" music have moved into the spotlight, in part because of the success of composer A.R. Rahman. Although a reluctant live performer, Rahman has undertaken two North American tours, a short one in 2000 and a longer one that opened Friday night at the Patriot Center.

Rahman is a new sort of Indian soundtrack composer, relying on computers and synthesizers. In concert, however, he took a more traditional approach, supplementing his bank of keyboards and occasional vocals with 10 singers, 11 dancers and more than 40 musicians, most of them playing Western instruments. With some of the performers in traditional Indian garb and others in spangly unitards or elaborately ripped jeans -- and a rapper dressed like an Indian Tupac Shakur -- the result was a blend of Bombay and Vegas almost as deliriously eclectic as a Bollywood musical.

The three-hour concert was not tightly paced, and the staging was less than dazzling. For "Chaiyya Chaiyya," a song set to a chugging rhythm, a projected photograph of a locomotive substituted for the flamboyant train-top dance number in the film for which the tune was written, "DilSe." But except for a few songs that were too blandly Westernized, Rahman's melodies were consistently engaging, and the shifting cast of vocalists -- including Vasundhara Das, known to American audiences for her appearance in "Monsoon Wedding" -- sent the tunes soaring. No prior knowledge of Bollywood was necessary to be swept up by the choruses of such Rahman anthems as "Maa Tujhe Salaam."