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JAYNE WITH A WHY |
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Tuesday, December 02, 2008IN CONCERT  Went to a concert last night, here in Abu Dhabi. Never been to Zayed Sports City before, but knew it was off Airport Road, so we followed the traffic. It led us to the 'old' Carrefour store & then a traffic circle manned by several policemen, who were doing absolutely nothing except look at all the cars, which were heading towards the stadium. We specifically went on the 'Glide, in order to cut through the endless snake of vehicles & managed to get through a gap in the barricades to park about 10m from the stadium - kewl! It's been a while since Hubs & I have been to a concert & we were really looking forward to this - 2 icons of the music industry - both incredibly talented - performing in the same evening. We found the correct gate & had the routine 'security check' which was downright bloody feeble. Some dummy waving his magic wand couldn't understand why a 6pack of Rennies made his little wand beep all the time.....................because the backing is made of foil you fuckwit! After doing his check on Hubs twice & twice coming up with his potential lethal device (the Rennies) Hubs asked him if he was actually a rocket scientist. *sigh* Before finding our seats, we decided to get a few drinks - rather have plenty with us than have to come out again half way through the show. There were 2 outlets on our level - one selling food & another one drinks, so we queued for the drinks. Get to the front & ask for 4 Cokes - Dhs40 (major fuckin' rip off!) Some dipshit fresh off the Sharjah Cattle Express just looked at us. 4 Cokes we repeated. A head wobble followed. Louder this time - 4 Cokes PLEASE! Another more intense head wobble. We pointed to bottles of Coke & held up 4 fingers. For crying in a bloody bucket, what the hell did this oke need to get the message? Another head wobbler stepped in, handed us 4 Cokes & informed us he couldn't accept money we were offering & that we must buy vouchers. Where from we ask? "Over there" it replied, but the wobbling head & arm direction pointed to nowhere in particular. There was NO sign...............NO indication whatsoever that in order to purchase food or drink, you had to buy vouchers. And to think, I gave my crystal ball the day off yesterday. We eventually found the voucher seller (the food outlet - gee thanks for letting everyone know), went back, repeated the same "4 Cokes please" to the same fuckwit at the drinks outlet & fuck me if he didn't wobble his fucking head & look at us like we'd just arrived from Mars! What a way to start the evening! We found our seats & went into Wait Small Mode. Ant like people were scurrying around at ground level & the stage looked a fair distance away...........blinding. Musicians began to warm up & around 9pm Ms Keys burst onto the stage. She is vocal dynamite really, but to be honest, I only liked about 4 of the songs she performed. The acoustics in the stadium were so bad that it sounded like her band was at least 2 beats behind her voice & that's really off-putting. There were 2 huge screens either side of the stage, which gave us plebs in the seated stands the chance to actually see her perform. She strutted her stuff, belted out numbers & held notes like there would be no tomorrow. Not bad for a young 'un. I would estimate that at least 1,000 people spent the entire 90 minutes of Ms Keys performance, queuing at the hopelessly inadequate bars on the ground level. After she finished, there was another 'wait small' period, so I nutted off to join the queue for the kidney squeezer. Nick the Greek (Georgie boy) naturally decided to make his grand entrance while I was still 6th in line for the loo - bugger! By the time I got back to my seat, he was well into his 2nd number - double bugger! I battled to actually see him on stage.......................I suspect for reasons of his vanity, the big screens showed computer graphics, instead of him, so all we got to see was a tiny figure doing his 'thing'. Major, major disappointment. The acoustics sounded a fraction better than the previous performance, but I've gotta admit, George missed several notes. He was fine when he was belting out the 'pop' songs, because he had the full line up of 6 backing singers & a cracking band taking his load off him, but when it came to the slow tempo/ballad, he was showing his age. The crowd - including the 1,000 odd that dragged themselves away from the bars - thoroughly enjoyed his performance. My good mate Kaya also went to the concert, but she got tickets (freebies I suspect) in the standing area, just a few metres from the stage. Her legs are younger than mine - no ways would I have stood for at least 4hrs. She really enjoyed the show :-) After 45 minutes of performing, Nick the Greek finished a number, said "Thank You!" & ducked off the stage. Silence. Lights came up & people started milling around. We waited for a bit. More silence - no announcements as to what was happening. Had the show finished? Was he coming back? Was this a quiz show?.................fucked if I know, cos no one said a thing. A digital clock appeared on the big screen, giving the countdown to midnight, which signalled the start of the 37th National Day of the UAE. I'm not feeling particularly patriotic for this place at the moment, so after a brief discussion with Hubs, we decided to leave.............as did many others. Kaya stayed on & to the best of my knowledge (from reading her blog) Nick the Greek did indeed return to the stage & knock out a few more songs. We climbed on the 'Glide & came home. I honestly don't feel like I missed much.  
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