Concert in Dubai

Mark Knopfler

One of the advantages of being in one of the more civilised parts of the Middle East is that Dubai has started to be included in the “World Tours” for music artists. Also since the culture here is based on everything last minute you can get tickets until almost the last day before the show. Unfortunately Abu Dhabi only gets the smaller and less popular performers. Mark Knopfler came to Dubai on Thursday so a group of us went in a minibus from Abu Dhabi.

The show was put on outside in the grounds of the Media City in an artificially created amphitheatre. The performance was brilliant, the sound and video system professionally put together, the stage not so far away as to be invisible and the weather not too hot or cold. They even managed to get the right number of people with no overcrowding and no big empty spaces. He perfomed many of the old classic like Romeo and Juliet and Telegraph Road together with a few new songs. This was two hours of quality entertainment.

There always has to be at least one bitch at any event. The catering and licensed bars were a disaster! The queue of drink was at least 40 minutes. That was before the system broke down completely and people starting ignoring the queue and just pushing in. The Level 42 concert in the same venue had about 6 bars with a lot fewer people. Much more profit could have been made and more satisfied punters watered. Still it kept the toilets free.

The bus journey there and back was also a farce. I’m five foot ten inches tall so about average height. Of the eleven people in the bus 4 men were over six foot three and 2 of them were wide as well. The bus was designed for smaller framed Indians and Pakistanis so it was rather a squeeze. We vowed to get a larger van next time. The 50-minute traffic jam to leave the area can only hint at the absolute chaos to come when the Jumeirah Lakes is finished. Let the buyers beware!