Stop, collaborate and listen
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:33PM Dubai isn’t known for bringing current or cutting edge music acts. It thrives on hosting concerts by musical acts from the 1980-90s or one hit wonders.
I’m a child of the 1980s, so don’t think I’m having a go at old music, but there are so many amazing musical acts that can be brought here, and it’s a shame when Dubai that tries to be a 21st century city at so many things continues to bring us musical acts that are not relevant and people continuing to attend these events instead of demanding better live acts.
So needless to say I was disappointed when it was recently announced that Vanilla Ice and Snap would be performing in Barasti at Le Meridien Mina Seyahi on 31st March. Vanilla Ice was a joke the first time round, so to have him come here to perform is almost embarrassing to admit. Snap I like - who can resist Oops Upside - but I can’t help wondering if it’s better to dance to a Snap tune in a club than seeing them live on stage.
Fast forward to yesterday when it was announced that the body of Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (brother of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi's ruler and the president of the United Arab Emirates) was recovered four days after his glider crashed in a lake in south of Rabat, Morocco.
So with this sad news, it was declared there’d be three days of official mourning. This means flags flying half-mast, sometimes it will be a day off work and normally no live entertainment like music, concerts, etc. So I assumed this gig wouldn't go ahead.
But we found out in the morning it was indeed happening, via Time Out Dubai and also via an SMS message.
From http://www.timeoutdubai.com/knowledge/features/14478-uae-in-mourning.
SMS message: "STOP! COLLABORATE & LISTEN! VANILLA ICE AT BARASTI IS GOING AHEAD TONIGHT AS PLANNED. NORMAL OPERATION. WE ARE NOT DRY! NICE, NICE BABY! 5PM-3AM C U ON THE SAND"
The message is crass considering the country is in mourning and perhaps it would have been enough to say the concert is still on (if authorities gave the go ahead).
But this SMS alert led to an outrage on Twitter by a group I will refer to as the Dubai Twits, who love to feel self righteous and treat Twitter as a solution to everything. You want to complain or praise something or someone, do it on Twitter. You want to meet new people or make new friends, go to the many Tweet Ups that are organized here, you have a question, forget Google, just ask on Twitter, someone is bound to answer. Even to questions like what to have for dinner.
Now don’t think of me as a Twitter hater, I am quite active on it and like to use it to share and find new information. Some of these Dubai Twits are actually friends, so I’m not attacking people on Twitter, but how it's used makes me feel that something as useful and casual as Twitter can also easily be very irritating.
A few hours later Barasti announced the gig is cancelled, via Twitter and Facebook.
From http://twitter.com/minaseyahi
Low and behold, the Dubai Twits rejoiced and praised the power of Twitter – it was slightly off putting, especially since this town continues to contradict itself and is very inconsistent when it comes to policies under circumstances like today. There was no actual outrage that the gig was actually going ahead – it was the tasteless SMS message that led people to raise their concern. Such an easy target…
I don't want to get into the power of social media and how it should be used. But I can't help wonder why no anger at the authorities that approved the gig to go ahead despite mourning period, no anger at Etisalat who continue to spam it’s subscribers with marketing messages everyday without any filtering or segmentation and most importantly not allowing us to report abuse or unsubscribe.
Get angry at the fact that Dubai was willing to actually host a has been like Vanilla Ice in the first place and stop attending mediocre events because there's nothing better to do on a Wednesday night. Get angry that event organizers here don’t make an effort to bring us better live acts and are stuck in 1980-90s time warp.
But sarcasm aside, the incompetency and lack of proper communication by the decision makers and organisers feels like it's amateur hour and seeing people not channelling their anger on worthier issues disappoints me.
You can say I’m am overreacting myself and I don’t want to sound like a snob. Everyone is free to attend and listen to whatever they want, and yes, even express it on Twitter. But what happened today felt like it could have been something out of The Onion. As a friend said to me earlier, "it’s not even 1st of April today".
Reader Comments (4)
This is why I'm rapidly unfollowing Dubai-based twerps. The self-righteousness drives me crazy!
Thank you for writing this! And wait.. wait and watch... the Twitter/Barasti, Power of Twitter, Comms 101 case studies flooding the radio shows and so-called social media conferences. This whole thing was such a grave overreaction, it's very sad. And the fact that local media captured it as if this was some radical movement, is even more sad. Yes, the SMS coud've been better formulated, but what makes me angry is that suddenly these Twitter people who are not from here are asking for customs to be respected, yet they are the same people that last week were outraged by the kissing couple story. Whatever.
I wouldn't go as far as equating 80s/90s music as 'bad' or 'mediocre'. Something 'current' doesn't necessarily have to be better then everything that's twenty years old. Dubai has hosted some wonderful and world class legends, who've delivered top notch performances, some of them very recently. For instance, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters played at Dubai twice, at the Media City recently. The show was spectacular, and he is really a superb musician and still puts on a far better show than any post-90s rock band can manage. The Scorpions (an 80s band) were here recently. Deep Purple at the bike fest last year. Queen. Iron Maiden. The jazz festival features a lot of good musicians, like Toto, Robin Gibb. Elton John was here recently. Wouldn't call him a has-been.
Granted, Vanilla Ice is shit, it is hard to say Dubai doesn't have good gigs. If you're looking for mainstream artistes of the times, then that's 'mediocrity' and not much else, whichever way you look about it.
A great balanced roundup of the whole issue - overblown, hypocritical, self-righteous or simply, foolish - whatever you call it. Worrying fact is that this shrill minority is drowning out the middle path. Any issue, however small, ends up becoming a religious-demographic-respect-sentiment issue. Need saner voices like yours and less self-appointed guardians of public more. The community can look after itself and needs less, not more, cajoling into agendas.