Shankar loves to see audiences enjoy his music

Music composer Shankar Mahadevan, set for a four-city tour with partners Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa, says the best reward for musicians is watching audiences grooving and clapping to their tunes.

"It's nice to be a music director, a musician and a performer. It becomes multi-tasking things. It's amazing to see people's love. It's a first hand experience," the 45-year-old said while announcing his tour.

"We know whenever our song becomes a hit and people are liking it. But when you actually see them (audiences) dancing and singing and clapping in front of you, that feeling cannot be replaced by anything else."

The tour stars March 18 in Bangalore. They will travel to Kolkata March 20, Mumbai March 25 and Delhi April 1.

Shankar says it would not be possible to perform on each of their best songs, but they would try to entertain the audience in the limited time.

"We are never able to perform the repertoire of our songs in a show, but we try to entertain people as much as we can. We will perform the maximum in the given time so that crowd would have something to remember the rest of their lives," said Shankar.

The trio came together in 1985 with a non-film music album. In 1997 they debuted in the film industry with "Dus".

After that they composed for Farhan Akhtar's directorial debut "Dil Chahta Hai" and it proved to be the turning point in their career.

The 2003 film "Kal Ho Naa Ho" fetched them the National Award for best composers.